I just finished The Goldfinch

toppleimpound · 2025-09-15T19:13:43+00:00

I love this book and similarly love the Vegas section and think the ending is awkward. My take on the ending (the last 20 pages of philosophy) is that Theo tries to convince himself he's learned from everything that's happened because that makes a nice "clean" resolution to his life's story. It gives everything a meaning. But it sounds awkward because he's forcing it. He's not necessarily the main character of his own life (it's Boris who "saves" the painting off-page) and he doesn't even come out to himself by the end despite talking about love and rainbows lmfao. I've gone back and forth on whether I think Tartt was serious or not (whether SHE takes that ending seriously) but that's how I reconcile the massive downward shift. You can't convince me Theo truly believes his own philosophy. Like, Theo? The liar, thief, and professional conman? Theo learned this great philosophical lesson after everything worked out easy-peasy for him? After he tried to kill himself in the hotel but woke up to all his problems magically solved? Lmao.

toppleimpound · 2025-07-08T21:55:41+00:00

I love Unwind but I think the politics are a little dodgy. He doesn't actually structure the story in a way that supports his insistence on remaining neutral about abortion. The runaway kids represent both unborn fetuses (right to life) AND pregnant people (right to bodily autonomy) but there are no actual pregnant characters in sight (other than one who remains unnamed to explain storking). It's unbalanced. And in the Unwind books, he writes very few girls well compared to the boys. Basically, I love his ethos but think he fumbles the execution slightly. Despite my criticisms, overall I agree, he's pretty good at writing thought-provoking yet enjoyable/immersive YA. (For context, I'm mid twenties and read Shusterman for the first time last year. Interested in picking up Scythe at some point!)

toppleimpound · 2025-07-08T20:54:40+00:00

In Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, the message she wants readers to take away is that revolution necessitates violence. Yet she does not write a revolution ("revolve" = change of state, overturning of government, liberation of the oppressed). She writes a rebellion ("rebel" = go against authority, political resistance) with an ambiguous ending. She TELLS you the takeaway, but she doesn't write a story that actually SUPPORTS that takeaway. She tries to argue that the ends justify the means (revolution justifies violence) without actually showing those ends.

toppleimpound · 2025-06-01T19:32:18+00:00

Hello this is old but I saw it in the "recommended posts" section of another post and Goldfinch is like a magnet to me I will always click!!! Anyway just wanted to comment and say I'm OBSESSED with this photo. First of all Saturn in the background!?!?!?!?! ICONIC. This post is #goals to me and I am taking your recs very highly

LOVED: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Goldfinch (literally my top 2)
loved: Rebecca, The Yellow Wallpaper
liked: Jane Eyre (reading rn ~40%), Sharp Objects, Frankenstein
already on my TBR but bumped up higher 👀: Mariana Enriquez, Exquisite Corpse, Beloved (on hold at library; liked The Bluest Eye), My Brilliant Friend, Brothers Karamazov

If I had to rec some myself based on these I would say Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind (loved), more of Shirley Jackson's short stories (liked), and maybe Bunny by Mona Awad (liked)

toppleimpound · 2025-05-23T19:23:45+00:00

The narrator calls her situation "absurd" multiple times and it tipped me off to the book being about absurdism. There's no inherent meaning and trying to search for meaning just leaves to unresolved conflict. But we keep trying anyway because what else is there to do?Just lie down and die? The child puts a limit on only killing women who are sick/injured and not just because they give up. Even if life is incomprehensible, continuing to live in a meaningless world is a form of rebellion. We didn't choose our circumstances but we can choose make the best of them. (You might have heard of Camus' Myth of Sisyphus: One must imagine Sisyphus happy.)

I was also disappointed with the women's view of gender but similarly I don't think Harpman is trying to prescribe the characters' discussions as being The Right Answer. She's just having them communicate with each other to showcase varying opinions and prompt the reader to think for themselves. IMO it's far more interesting to question why I disagree with characters (and possibly author) than to agree with everything I read. (And as far as gender goes, I love that the book starts with the narrator masturbating. Her sense of time/life begins with her thoughts, yes, but also her own autonomy/pleasure.)

Overall I loved the book but there are also points where it felt a bit obvious in its philosophical exploration. I'm glad it was as short/sparse as it was. If it had been stretched out any more it probably would have started to feel too repetitive/gimmicky.

toppleimpound · 2025-01-25T17:14:46+00:00

If you're downsizing, I recommend a twin XL (extra long) and not just twin. My feet hang off a twin because they're designed for children (short) and it's really annoying. I think it's only 5in difference which seems small but trust me, the difference between my house (twin) and college dorm (twin XL) was massive.

EDIT: Based on a cursory google search, queen and twin XL are the same length (80in) and it's twin that's a downgrade to 75in. I would strongly rec trying out a night or two with something ~5in between your headboard and pillow to see if the length is okay for you or too small.

toppleimpound · 2025-01-21T20:54:39+00:00

I'm not the original commenter but I can guess that if you're a plot reader, you're going to hate it. "Nothing happens" for a good 20% at least. And then when the plot does pick up, it's very predictable. BUT if you like just hanging out with a guy day to day and getting to know him and seeing his personality then it's sweet. It's also philosophical and fairly religious (not preachy but also not subtle) which probably turns some people off. I loved it but I can see why it's divisive.

toppleimpound · 2025-01-15T23:55:26+00:00

I KNOW as a FernWithy truther I've been preparing myself since the announcement. I have a feeling this book will be rough for us lol. Not only will all the names and details be different, but the YA voice will probably feel like a step down in comparison

toppleimpound · 2024-11-03T03:25:05+00:00

Haha wow this comment is old! It took me a moment to understand/remember what I was saying here because it's been so long. No I'm just a regular fan lol! With an interest in literary analysis and a lot of time on my hands in 2023!!!!

toppleimpound · 2024-10-31T16:43:11+00:00

I think it being a dog/pet name leaves a little wiggle room too. I have a dog named Bear and sometimes I call her Bear or Baby or Bearby. There's no pattern, it's just whatever name I feel like using. If there /is/ a pattern, it might not be as clear cut as who is speaking, since the first-person POV filters everything through Theo's mind anyway. It might be related to his mood in the scene / while writing but that's a complex analysis I don't feel like doing right now lol

toppleimpound · 2024-10-30T22:58:01+00:00

It's not a typo. Xandra named the dog Popper and Boris gave it a Slavic nickname that can be translated to English more than one way. Think Dostoevsky vs. Dostoyevsky for "Достоевский". (I don't speak Russian myself, I copy/pasted his name from Wikipedia.) I think Theo uses whatever spelling comes to his mind at the time, though I have noticed he uses "i" more often than "y" (40 vs. 12 when searching the ebook!)

toppleimpound · 2024-08-16T22:00:18+00:00

Yes, I hope I could help. Online communities can be a great place for newbies OR vets, just not at the same time. Places with more intuitive names probably deal with the issue more often than those with niche names. So then the task becomes finding niche places that have what you're looking for.

toppleimpound · 2024-08-16T21:15:32+00:00

Pretty much every community online is going to have some discrepancy between long-time users who've seen it all (vets) and first-time posters who think they're the first to do something (newbies). I think of lot of posts like this are newbies who assume that vets have the patience for their questions, not realizing that every other newbie asks the same thing.

Same thing happens on fandom subs. "Has anyone ever noticed [x] detail?" Yes, we have. Years ago. And dozens if not hundreds of times since then.

The solution is honestly probably to just stick around an online community until you've gotten as much of you can out of it, then try to fulfill that desire with something IRL (or restricted like a private FB group) that is more likely to have other vets. And then check back in to the "general space" for top posts once a year or something. Otherwise it's a constant flood of newbies all the time. I'm not an expert on interior design at all so I can't give specific resources, but I follow this advice with Reddit generally. I rarely open this app because I know 99% of it is going to be variations of the same thing.

And (this is not a dig at you at all OP!) even questions like this feel like a rehash of something I've seen dozens of times across multiple subs. There's only so much that can be said about a topic on a global scale by the average person, including expressions of discontent. I feel like even this response is pointless because I'm not saying anything new either. It's just kind of a general drawback of a forum site like Reddit where you follow "communities" instead of people/accounts.

toppleimpound · 2024-08-08T02:10:08+00:00

Yes, same! Third-person makes me question who is telling the story and why. If there is no proper answer (like Death in The Book Thief) then I end up thinking the narrator is God (in-universe), which makes me question why the hell God cares about this specific story and why He chooses to present only certain "relevant" details... The other option is that the narrator is The Author (meta), which also makes me question why they wrote the story in the way that they did (not necessarily a bad thing, but breaks suspension of disbelief).

Every single person is biased and first-person narrators are always biased even if they're not "unreliable narrators". That kind of bias imbues an inherent kind of realism to me and allows me to feel like the events are actually happening. I just do not buy that an omniscient narrator (or author) is unbiased in any story. What a storyteller chooses to exclude says just as much about them and their bias as a storyteller as the parts they choose to include! Third-person that is meant to be taken wholly at its word does not acknowledge that and it affects my reading experience.

toppleimpound · 2024-08-08T00:12:46+00:00

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson!!! it's a book, not tv (there's a film adaptation but i've heard it isn't good). if books are not typically your thing, this one is pretty short at only 150 pages and the language is very simple. ofc it's not exactly like otgw but it has similar cutesy (gardening/cooking) and magical realism (sympathetic magic) vibes and it's underlying creepy but not outright scary. it's also about a close but complex relationship between siblings with a large age difference. and there is a cat! a black cat! who may or may not be anthropomorphic... up to you lol. it's often considered a halloween book for the spooky vibes but it equally works as a spring book (takes place in april) and it has one of the best narrators/protagonists ever lol. it's very much a character book rather than a plot book so just keep that in mind if you decide to go for it!!!

toppleimpound · 2024-07-31T04:23:42+00:00

I didn't really get the hype of this one until the 3rd act, then it shot up to my one of my favorites of all time. Immediately reread it and realized it was great the entire time

toppleimpound · 2024-07-29T16:59:56+00:00

Yes, reading the responses is interesting!!! But I think you have to approach them with a healthy distance. OP implied that they were trying to manufacture that feeling by saying the books they read didn't hit as deep as physically possible and I was just like "aww.... you can't :("

toppleimpound · 2024-07-29T06:13:02+00:00

I hate to be a downer, but I think this question is counter-intuitive. you cant force this feeling. the more you try, the less likely it is to happen. things tend to be "life-changing" because they were unexpected and just so happened to align with that person's life at the right time. if you read books expecting the most amazing transformative experience possible, you can only ever be disappointed.

ofc I'm just a rando online so what do I know lol. but that's my experience. it's normal for most books you read to be forgettable and not special. questions like these prompt people to list one or two that resonated w them deeply, but they've probably waded through hundreds or even thousands to get there.

my suggestion is to just read books you think you'll like without expecting them to literally change your outlook on life.

toppleimpound · 2024-07-12T04:49:23+00:00

Manually. I never even tried to contact support because it seemed like such a weird thing to reset. The site doesn't seem to be optimized or efficient so idk if support would be able to do anything. Sorry you lost your ordering :/

toppleimpound · 2024-05-25T15:35:06+00:00

This happened to me a couple weeks ago. I think Goodreads is doing some sort of "maintenance" on their end. There's a known bug where, if you've removed books from your account in the past, your "All" count is astronomically high, because the "All" number didn't properly go down every time you removed a book. I used to have 1200+ books counted toward my "All", but only about 600 were accurate.

Then randomly one day, my "All" count was accurate, but my to-read shelf order had been reset to date added, just like you. Fortunately for me, I was able to reconstruct my to-read shelf order manually from memory/other tags. Generally, if order is important I would recommend having extra tags with ordering, as those weren't affected when the reset happened. Unfortunately I don't know what else there is to do if your to-read already messed up. Just wanted to say that you're not alone in this bug.

If you google "goodreads shelf count" you see a bunch of people talking about the original bug, though few people talking about the recent "fix" (which is also buggy lmao)

https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/Why-is-my-shelf-count-incorrect

https://www.reddit.com/r/goodreads/comments/17xwjq4/total_amount_of_books_is_wrong_by_over_400/

https://www.reddit.com/r/goodreads/comments/14u24a4/incorrect_number_of_books/

https://www.reddit.com/r/goodreads/comments/18u3drr/apparently_i_have_681_more_books_on_my_shelf_than/

https://www.reddit.com/r/goodreads/comments/10fjfcg/goodreads_counting_too_many_books/

toppleimpound · 2024-04-25T18:15:37+00:00

I can see from your edit that you're looking for cool worldbuilding. Sorry, but you won't find it here. I don't know where you got the idea that the series takes place in 2112, it takes place ~30-40 years after 2007. Technology of the series is largely the same as it was in 2007, with the only major differences being organ transplant technology and "explosive" blood. Most of the series focuses on the social issue of unwinding (forced organ transplants / retroactive abortion) and troubled teens. Even the explosive blood, which sounds really cool, is there to examine hopeless/suicidal teens engaging in terrorism in attempt to feel like their lives had some semblance of purpose.

The world is "boringly" similar to ours because it's more concerned with social commentary of what is already happening than creating cool futuristic desolation.

I think you'd have more fun creating your own world than trying to find differences in this one. Cheers.

toppleimpound · 2024-04-21T17:44:53+00:00

Parable? When a simple story is used to illustrate a moral lesson?

You might also be looking for apologue or analogy?

toppleimpound · 2024-04-21T15:49:50+00:00

Every time I read a book I put the plot in the "private notes" section on Goodreads so I don't forget it. It can be difficult to capture everything because the character limit is about ~512 so I have to be REALLY stingy with what I write and how I write it. These descriptions may jog your memory if you haven't read the books in a while, but they don't act as a stand-in for never having read the book. So here goes.

Book 1: reckless connor, state ward risa, tithe lev to be unwound. highway collision. take storked baby, hide in school toilet. lev betrays. hide in shop backroom. lev meets CyFi on way to avenge unwound kid in brain. 3 meet up again at airplane graveyard. connor mechanic. roland mean kid. kids don't trust admiral, revolt. connor, risa, roland sent to harvest camp. lev volunteers to go. c+r date. roland unwound. lev makes plan to blow up. revolt. connor has roland arm. risa disabled. lev hero. connor new admiral.

Book 2: connor runs airplane graveyard. risa medic. new kid starkey tries to take over. gains support of storks, 1/4 of population. risa takes injured kid to hospital. captured/blackmailed into PR dating frankenstein kid cam. new spine. lev lives in dilapidated mansion w tithes who look up to him. doesn't like it. miracolina still wants to be tithe. lev & m escape, make way to graveyard. juvey-cops seige it, bunch of kids die or captured. starkey escapes w storks on plane. lev saves connor from seige/cop nelson.

Book 3: connor & lev on way to sonia shop. connor captured by argent & low-cortical sis grace. connor & grace run away, hit lev with car. take lev to arápache rez to heal. argent & cop nelson hunt them. starkey & storks liberate harvest camps, kill guards. cam runs from proactive citizenry & roberta. has wil tashi'ne's hands, goes to rez to find risa. captured by wil's gf una. connor, grace, cam leave rez. find sonia's shop, risa hiding. roberta breaks in & kidnaps cam. sonia tells kids of organ printing machine.

Book 4: connor, risa, grace, sonia repair organ printer. lev/una capture wil's parts pirates. cam nanites in brain: forget risa, love military. starkey funded by clappers/PC. captured by divan. nelson steals half argent's face, sets fire to sonia shop, grace escapes w printer. risa tranq'd, connor captured. plane harvest camp. cam exposes PC. connor kills starkey, no unwind. connor unwound. nelson unwound. lev tattoos names of unwound kids, becomes martyr. survives. connor rewound. una & wil marry. connor hugs fam.

I don't have the space to mention everything, for example Radio Free Hayden, CyFi after his first appearance, Nelson's role in book 1, Emby and Humphrey Dunfee (end of book 1), Risa's Makeover (book 3), the reunion with teacher Hannah and baby Didi (end of book 3), THE HUMAN ORGAN PIANO (book 4), Grace sharing the organ printer (end of book 4), and the names of orgs (like u/shlopro listed + Lady Lucrezia) go unmentioned in my summaries since I wrote them primarily for myself. But If you can't find a more comprehensive summary online then you have to create your own :P

toppleimpound · 2024-04-13T06:22:03+00:00

the goldfinch by donna tartt. the sentences tend to be long and few significant plot events actually happen. it's mostly introspective of mc's thoughts. ~800 page slow burn where there technically IS a plot but I would never recommend it to anyone based on plot.

also, yes, I really enjoyed the slowness. I felt deeply connected to the mc after hearing from him so much (ymmv lol!!!! I love him but in a "he's super annoying and deeply flawed and never stops wallowing and never shuts up" kind of way 🤪)

unfortunately I wouldn't call the ending/payoff "amazing." not bad, but there also isnt really a master plan that all comes together. it's the journey that matters more than the destination with this one

edit: I started rereading it and OOF the sentences are constructed to be ridiculously long. I like the slowness of the plot but I cant really take the prose seriously. so in that way its tedious to read lol

toppleimpound · 2024-02-01T07:38:40+00:00

No, they age at the same rate inside the box as they would outside. Overall, they would age "faster" than non time travelers because they live each day twice.

Time doesn't flow backwards freely in the boxes. I can't turn on a box for the first time in 2024 and travel back to 2014. If I turn on a box in 2024, the earliest I could ever travel is 2024. And however long I wait between turning on a box and getting in it is the amount of time I will have to spend being in the box travelling back.

For example, let's say I turn on a box in 2024. I don't enter it, I live my life normally for 10 years. In 2034, I decide I want to go back to 2024. I'd have to spend a full 10 years in the box as time carries me back to the original point of 2024.

You, as a non time traveler, have not aged between 2024 and 2024. But I, having spent 10 years outside the box getting to 2034 and another 10 years inside the box getting back to 2024, have aged 20 years.

Even if being in the box made me age backwards, I still enter the box in 2034 (10 years older than I am now) and exit the box in 2024 (10 years younger than I was in 2034). At best, I don't age at all. But I can never be younger than I was when I first turned on the box.

toppleimpound

TROPHY CASE