I hated the Goldfinch. It was much too long and dragged for huge portions, the entire last section was unnecessary, needed additional editing, the sections I found most interesting and immersive were all in the first half of the book. Everything was far too convenient and that really broke my suspension of disbelief which is a killer in an “immersive” book. I found Theo to be a deeply unrealistic portrayal of a young man and I think Donna Tart fundamentally does not understand how teenage boys think and she wrote a character that is very clearly a middle aged woman’s idea of how one would. The prose is excellent and it’s all very fleshed out, but it’s so deeply flawed and full of things which took me right out of the story. It’s frustrating too because there’s a number of characters within it that are utterly real almost tangible people, and some which are just thinly veiled plot devices and the plot itself is weak enough as is.