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Loading... The Little Friendby Donna Tartt
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Good child hero story, a little like Mark Tidd, but for adults. Girl goes after her brother's killer. Drags a bit, but above average. ( )A powerful story about a young girl trying to find out why her brother was murdered. As she probes her memory for clues, she tries to piece together what happened....with disastrous results. i had great expectations after reading "Secret history " which is Donna Tartt's first book ( i think ) but i' m disappointed. The beginning is great and story develops very well but that's it. After one point it seems that nothing is happening and you keep reading and reading. I like that the story is based on mystery but in second part of the book that mystery ( unresolved death of a young boy ) is mentioned very rarely and in the end nothing is resolved. It's written very good but storyplot could be better. Whodunit? Who knows!! Every time it got my juices flowing with anticipation, things just stopped. Beautifully written, but poor plot. The Little Friend doesn't seem to have attracted as much positive critical acclaim as Tartt's The Secret History, but it contains the same elements that made the latter a success: absorbing, vividly painted characters, a slow moving but tightly crafted plot, and archetypal timeless American settings. Harriet has been raised largely by her grandmother and great aunts while her mother gracefully slips into a drug induced haze brought on by the death of Harriet's brother when she was a baby. 12 years later, Harriet resolves to solve the mystery of his death, and becomes caught up in the small town criminal underworld of the deep south. Harriet does a good job of portraying Harriet's rather intense worldview, but I was more taken with the other characters, Harriet's grandmother and aunts, and the criminal dregs of Ratcliff family. I didn't feel Tartt's leisurely pacing in describing their thoughts and feelings fit well with the murder mystery story of Harriet's quest, and I suspect this may be one of the causes of other readers' dissatisfaction with the book: the slow plot makes the book hard going if you're not interested in the minor characters. The resolution is also a little ambiguous: I'm fairly sure I see what happened to Harriet's brother, but reading online it seems many readers disagree! There are also elements I don't quite understand - I really don't see the significance of Harriet's sister, for example. For me, The Little Friend is worth reading as a social commentary. The casual racism and petty-mindedness could make for a depressing read, but as with The Secret History somehow Tartt succeeds in leaving the reader uplifted. no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0679439382, Hardcover)The hugely anticipated new novel by the author of The Secret History—a best-seller nationwide and around the world, and one of the most astonishing debuts in recent times—The Little Friend is even more transfixing and resonant.In a small Mississippi town, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes grows up in the shadow of her brother, who—when she was only a baby—was found hanging dead from a black-tupelo tree in their yard. His killer was never identified, nor has his family, in the years since, recovered from the tragedy. For Harriet, who has grown up largely unsupervised, in a world of her own imagination, her brother is a link to a glorious past she has only heard stories about or glimpsed in photograph albums. Fiercely determined, precocious far beyond her twelve years, and steeped in the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle, she resolves, one summer, to solve the murder and exact her revenge. Harriet’s sole ally in this quest, her friend Hely, is devoted to her, but what they soon encounter has nothing to do with child’s play: it is dark, adult, and all too menacing. A revelation of familial longing and sorrow, The Little Friend explores crime and punishment, as well as the hidden complications and consequences that hinder the pursuit of truth and justice. A novel of breathtaking ambition and power, it is rich in moral paradox, insights into human frailty, and storytelling brilliance. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:08 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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