Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant
Review: One of the most tragic things that can happen to a brilliant young talent with a freshman offering that astonishes everyone is that, sooner or later, they must produce a sophmore book so everyone can say, "Oh my, she's really not that great, is she?" It is our national obsession to do so. But make no mistake, Donna Tartt's new novel demonstrates that she has more precision and literary acumen than any other writer working today. "The Little Friend" is a treasure chest of expertly crafted characters and finely honed details in a story that is as engrossing as her first, but with a humor and emotion that demonstrate her maturity in the craft. Yes, it is long, but after waiting ten years it is deeply satisfying to sit down with a formidable story to savor.
Rating:
Summary: Please, Read this book...it's magnificent!
Review: Although this book has received an amazing amount of publicity, wade through it and read the novel on its own terms. I haven't read The Secret History, so have no comparison to make between the two, but judging from the quality of Tartt's writing, we are in the presence of a REAL WRITER, someone with the skill to make readers sit up an take notice. The novel centres on the fading glory of the old South, with its dilapidated mansions and isssues of class and hierarchy still central to the characters. Tarrt's writing is a refreshing change to the precious plots that are often sold as modern literature. The writing is imaculate and although it is a "long" novel, it is not long-winded. By the end of the novel I was completely drawn in and my university texts sat unread as I eagerly read to the end. I found it utterly convincing and satisfying without the traces of sentimentality that often cloud books about the South. It was well worth the ten year wait!
Rating: 
Summary: Not all that great
Review: What a horrible and boring read, I guess she really only had one good book in her after all. The Secret History is my favorite book, The Little Friend was bad, predictable and boring. With 80 pages left and no suspense or story I was forced to skim to the end. It did not hold my intrest at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Feeling more like something that would have been penned ten years ago by Goth Queen Anne Rice, or better yet V.C. Andrews in her "Flowers in the Attic" heydey, this Southern tale of murder and revenge I felt missed the mark more than it hit. I like so many others loved "The Secret History", and couldn't wait to break into this. To the authors credit if she wanted to create an entirely different world, she did. However she did it without creating any likable or redeeming characters. Just a young over smart pseudo protagonist, her eccentric Aunts, and a pack of brothers straight out of the movie "Deliverence". The book moved in fits and starts, and at times I was just plain bored.It also lends itself to a climax that never pays off and a slew of unanswered questions. By the end this was like the reading equivalent of the feature "Mulholland Falls". Flashy, but what the [heck] was the point?
Rating:
Summary: A Fresh Perspective
Review: Well, I have never read her first book, which everyone else seems to be comparing this one. Therefore, I had no preconceived expectations. However, after reading this one, I don't want to read anything else by this author. This was one of the biggest wastes of time I have ever read. The only reason I finished it was to find out "who did it." Well, guess what? She (Tartt) didn't even give me that satisfaction.The first couple of (long) chapters were good and interesting. It was downhill from there. Tartt bogged us down in detailed descriptions of things that had nothing to do with the plot. I literally skimmed and skipped through entire pages! Do NOT waste your money on this book!
Rating:
Summary: There should be a warning label on this book!
Review: This book needs a warning label on it - and not because of sexual content (if only it had some). The publisher should be warning readers how BORING it is! Do not read this book before driving a car or operating heavy machinery. Lawsuits should be filed shortly! Tartt should be held accountable for any and all accidents that occur as a result of the soporific tome. On "The Today Show" the first thing out of her mouth was how "hard" it was to write - she may have had trouble staying awake herself! That definitely comes across in the finished product - although it doesn't seem finished at all. It feels dashed together and incomplete. Is excessive length meant to compensate for that? The 12-year-old protagonist is a nice conceit, seems a good idea, but the reality is that Harriet is simply not that interesting. Harper Lee's got nothing to worry about; Tartt will never surpass her achievement with To Kill a Mockingbird. THAT book has a soul. This one is pure contrivance and will power. My warning to all unsuspecting readers and fans is: BEWARE: BOREDOM AHEAD! NO DOZE REQUIRED! And I have one question for Tartt: who or what is "the little friend?" There is NO such character in the whole book!
Rating: 
Summary: Well, there went a weekend of my life that I won't get back
Review: On page 447 of the Australian edition of this interminable tract, the central character gives her mother some good advice which runs along the lines that if you don't want to do something, you should just stand up for yourself and not do it. If only Ms Tartt had followed her own advice. That she CAN write is not the question. It's whether she really wanted to write this particular novel that one is left wondering.
Rating:
Summary: This is a terrific book -- if you are a terrific reader
Review: I really enjoyed The Secret History and was excited Donna Tartt had finally published another novel. Unlike the other reviewers here, who baffle me, I find this one engrossing and very interesting -- less humorous but more frightening and thrilling than TSH -- and certainly not a disappointment. I have been enjoying this book immensely and recommending it to everyone. Harriet and her friend Hely are whiling away the tedium of summer when they get involved in a dark mission: find and exact revenge on the person who murdured Harriet's brother, who died in mysterious circumstances many years ago. The result is a narrative that twines realism with classic children's novels like Treasure Island and The Jungle Book (the kind of books Harriet reads). Harriet's immediate (dysfunctional) family are realistically depicted, but as the narrative expands to include the foils for her heroine's adventure, they become more Dickension, though Dickension in a Southern Gothic style. As Hely and Harriet wander from her house to his, they bicker, play chess, and generally suffer from the same ennui all children on summer vacation suffer... but then find themselves in and out of trouble, depending on their resources and luck, like the heroes in adventure stories. Subtly, the literary scope so shifts back and forth between the tragically mundane and the fantastic. The result is a pleasurable and fascinating read. I think some readers miss the point. The "long" sections that evoke boredom are supposed to -- but they evoke boredom without being boring. These passages are about boredom. The "cliched" characters are supposed to be familiar -- they recall the broadly drawn villains in the books kids love. Most of all, this is a book about reading. If you have read the books Harriet reads, and spent boring summer days immersed in Doyle and Kipling, then this book will be a pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: great characters, great writing, but missing plot
Review: Donna Tartt has certainly not lost her craft, in The Little Friend, she proves herself to be a great writer. I enjoy her writing style and I didn't find the book boring...but it was ultimately frustrating.
Her ability to draw such realistic and compelling characters, especially Harriet, is impressive. Personally, I loved Harriet. I found her realistic and engaging.
The main problem is that the book is overly long, not a whole lot happens, the minimal plot is not particularly suspenseful or dramatic, and the ending is puzzling--what are we supposed to take away from this well-written book about a compelling young woman? While I like novels with more open-ended ideas, I was ultimately left feeling empty, not inquisitive.
I can appreciate Donna Tartt's writing, and Harriet managed to get under my skin, but the novel as a whole, didn't do it for me.
Rating:
Summary: Donna Tartt has simply outdone herself!
Review: After a ten-year hiatus, Donna Tartt, author of THE SECRET HISTORY, is back. THE LITTLE FRIEND, her long awaited second novel, exceeds all expectations. And, while we may never know the reasons for the wide gap between the two books, only the results matter . Suffice it to say, the lady has outdone herself, and her latest effort has been worth the wait. The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi where the Dufresne/Cleve families, suffered a terrible tragedy that changed the course of their lives irrevocably. One Mother's Day, Robin, their nine-year-old son was murdered. "Mrs. Fountain saw him first." Her screams brought Charlotte Cleve Dufrense, his mother, running, "He was hanging by the neck from a piece of rope, slung over the low branch of the black-tupelo that stood near the overgrown privet hedge [that divided the Dufrense property from the Fountain's] he was dead." The only possible "witnesses" to his murder were his younger sisters, Allison, who was four years old and the baby, Harriet. If they saw anything it was buried in the deepest recesses of their psyches, not to be recovered. For years the townspeople buzzed and gossiped speculating about who could be responsible for such a horrendous crime. Suspicion was everywhere and nowhere, and in the end, the investigation was dropped. Robin's family never discussed his brutal murder; rather, they chose to remember him as a lively, lovable little boy, who brought joy to those whose lives he touched. hether or not their anecdotal remembrances were real was never an issue, .... Harriet's mother never quite forgave herself for Robin's death and she withdrew into an "…indifference that numbed and colored every area of her life," and her older daughter, Allison, followed her into the same dreamy netherworld. Dix Cleve, the adulterous absentee father, moved to another state and only occasionally came home to visit. But his absence transmogrified the Dufrense/Cleves into a matriarchal family whose driving force is Charlotte's mother, Edith, the children's fierce, no-nonsense grandmother. Edith's sisters make up the rest of the clan and they are Harriet's support system. They all live within walking distance of each other and when Harriet needs comfort or company she turns to her great aunts who welcome her kindly. Tartt establishes all of this with languid prose that propels the reader into the action twelve years after Robin's death. Harriet, already a force a to reckon with is smart, snobbish, angry, manipulating, independent, fiercely loyal and very strong. She is a misfit among her peers, she doesn't share their interests, she is a scholar by nature and has only one friend, Hely Hull, a boy who idolizes her and would do anything for her. Together the two pals devise a plan to avenge Robin's death. Harriet commits herself with obsessive tunnel vision to finding the killer. With snippets of unverified rumors she focuses her outrage on one man, which puts her and Hely in the center of a tangled web of danger, deceit, destruction and death. Tartt's detailed depiction of the mores of life in a small southern town, with an underbelly as corrupt and dangerous as any urban center, throbs with pathos. She has given readers a provocative novel which is interesting and suspenseful; part murder mystery, part coming of age tale, part a child's story, part a story of loyalty and friendship, part an interlocutory on the American justice system, part a study in southern culture and mores, part a commentary on the little ways families chip away at themselves, especially in the face of tragedy or death, only to find their center implodes and leaves a haunting void in its wake. Of the major motif Tartt says, "This is a book about children, but it's not a book for children. It's a frightening book. It's a scary book. It's fairly dark. It's about children coming into contact with adults ... and coming into contact with the world of adults in a very frightening way." She also maintains, time and patience are the most important elements a writer must cultivate in order to do "it" perfectly. She admits that she writes slowly and says; too, "There are no real messages in my fiction. The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty." And these beliefs, put into practice, is precisely what makes THE LITTLE FRIEND such a rich, passionate book in the spirit of Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, while at the same time, it is imbued with the dark humor and loss of innocence vividly portrayed in HARRIET THE SPY. THE LITTLE FRIEND is a treasure and readers can only hope that Ms. Tartt doesn't take ten years to produce another gem. --- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
|
