If you think of this book as a straight mystery/suspense novel, it is great. But Tartt hints at so much more and then ends up leaving the reader with an interesting promise of a story and then not much else. I think she wishes it was Crime and Punishment meets A Separate Peace, but it just isn’t. I was also disappointed by her failure to really do anything with the study of Greek that was clearly (at least to me) the novel’s most intruiging element. Also the character development is pretty pathetic. The characters are all the same except they each get to have one distinguishing attribute, so they are all basically caricatures. If none of this sounds too bad, then you will probably like this book. Incidentally, I read this in one sitting, so despite my criticisms, I was thoroughly entertained.

Absolutely un-put-downable stuff. most likely my favourite book ever, it twists and turns and well to say to much would ruin the book but well you really should read this, it captures the whole going to college for the first time/leaving home vibe just brilliantly. Go ,now! run to the bookshop and buy it, run! before they all go!

This is a rare book where I couldn’t find a single sympathetic character, and yet I still liked it a lot. And shit, I look at Raskolnikov as a sympathetic character, if that’s any indication. No likeable characters, foreknowledge of what’s going to happen in the end, and yet, it still managed to be compelling. The force of the narrative and the tangibility of the atmosphere pulled me along despite myself. I felt like taking a shower after every chapter, and yet I kept reading. Comparisons to Greek tragedy are apt. A lot of the characters there seem cold and brutal as well, and it’s similarly fatalistic and foreordained, but still oddly compelling in much the same way.