It is specific, haunting detail nailed down to the page and the reader’s mind. Her writing is not the beauty and delight of jewel-like descriptions in wandering, stunning prose. She writes with stunning detail and clarity, conjuring scenes and moments that feel so full of life and emotion, there’s hardly any distance between the reader and the moment itself.

Tartt is a master at work within the pages of The Goldfinch. Though I haven’t come away from The Goldfinch with quite the same awed reverence as I did from The Secret History, I cannot help but feel that vagueness is the way to go about discussing Tartt’s novels. I felt that The Secret History-the characters, the atmosphere, the plot-was best left un-hinted at for readers to discover for themselves. In reviewing Tartt’s most iconic work, The Secret History, I was purposely vague, giving very little detail of even my own thoughts beyond what could be expressed broadly about specifics. While I knew little in the way of what I could expect from this novel’s plot or storyline, I knew this: the writing would be impeccable. With her characteristically powerful storytelling, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is a novel I fell headfirst into, sinking into the words, imagery, and events Tartt so clearly and eloquently brought to life from the very first page. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph – a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. He is alienated and in love – and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart.

The goldfinch review book