Sometimes you meet people who were very clearly meant to be in your life all along; and sometimes, you meet those people on Tumblr through a mutual interest in a wonderful book. That's how we met. We are Zoë and Kathryn (Kai, Katz, etc?), and we met on Tumblr through a mutual love of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. In the last few months, we have written fan-fiction, drawn fan art, Facetimed for hours, traveled halfway across the country to meet each other, and binge read dozens of books together. We've both fallen in love with characters and authors and stories, and that's what keeps us on the same page (ha). On the Same Page is a blog dedicated to our thoughts and reviews of the books we read, our all time favorites, authors we love, and upcoming books we're excited for.
First, a little bit about us, individually.
Zoë (she/he/they) is a professional fashion photographer based out of Washington State. She takes incredible photos and has a way of making everyone she works with feel beautiful. Zoë has a wonderful partner, two cats, two chinchillas, a bunny, and approximately 40 plants. She recently rediscovered a love of reading that she had rather abandoned after middle school, specifically romance and light hearted comedy and fantasy. She gives decidedly zero fucks about what anyone thinks of her and feels her grammar is very poor. In their (albeit limited) spare time, Zoë draws stunning fan art and writes fan-fiction of books she enjoys. You can find her gorgeous fan art on Instagram at @zoeellendraws.
Kai (she/they) is a reader/writer/barista/artist based out of Colorado. She has read 63 books in the last three months, even though her reading goal for the entire year was 50 books. She has too many books to fit on her bookshelf, a Kindle, and has recently discovered a love of audiobooks (as long as the narrator is good at all the voices). They have a cat named Lavender Jones, one bamboo plant (it's all she can keep alive), drinks too much coffee, loves lighthouses, and they share a birthday with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Morrissey. Kathryn also draws fan art and writes fan-fiction for books she enjoys. Her goal is to live by the ocean and make a living selling her art and writing/editing books.
Since we met through a mutual love of The Goldfinch, we decided it would be only fitting for that to be the first book we review together. It will honestly probably be more of a discussion than a condensed review because this book brings out a lot of thoughts in us.
(Potential minor spoiler warning)
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, published in 2013, is a work of contemporary fiction that follows the life of Theo Decker. From his youth: surviving a domestic terrorist attack, experiencing loss and grief...more than once, and moving to Vegas where he meets one of the great friends of his life----to his adult years: still carrying the burden of grief, losing himself to drugs, and finding himself reunited with a friend and dragged into the art underworld as a result of bad decision making. It's the world seen through Theo's unreliable narration as he figures out who he is and tries to cling to the before.
"Her death the dividing mark: Before and After." Theo Decker on his mother's death. Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch. Pg.8
K: One thing I think Donna Tartt did incredibly well in The Goldfinch was writing something relatable. Not that stealing a painting, doing drugs in an empty pool in Vegas, and getting caught in a shoot out in Amsterdam over said painting is relatable, per se. More so that the emotions that the characters, specifically Theo, feel throughout the novel are relatable. Everyone experiences grief, loss, heartache, confusion, and hopelessness at some point in their life. These emotions are part of the human condition, and I think Donna Tartt did a great job writing them in a way that felt raw and real.
Z: It's also a story that I think hasn't really been done before. When I saw the film, and I've seen a lot more films than I've read books, I felt like it was a really different story and that's probably why--despite the flaws of the film--I fully enjoyed it enough to go seek out the book.
K: See, and I read the book first. I knew nothing about the story before starting it, and I'll admit the first few chapters were a bit slow. But by the time things really started happening, I was already feelings all of Theo's emotions and completely invested. I agree completely, I've never read another book like it.
Z: As far as character development goes... I think we naturally think of character development as "X starts out in one particular way that's maybe not great--they experience things and grow as a person and eventually they become this more enlightened, better human being." Where as, Donna Tartt writes Theo having negative character development.
K: He is a relatively normal child, and as he grows up and goes through all the shit he experiences, he becomes kind of a worse person. He lets everything that happens to him affect him so much and it affects the way he treats everyone in his life. It's definitely not a case of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and more of a "what doesn't kill you makes you wish you were dead."
Z: Speaking of character development. Theo, and maybe Boris, are really the only ones who get any. The only characters who are given any depth are Theo, and the ones who are most important to him...which is really just Boris. All the rest of the side characters feel a bit like caricatures. They're all written as a trope: the absent father, the girl next door, the awful step mom, etc. and they all pretty much stay a trope throughout the book. There's no growth in any side character except Boris.
K: Agreed. A lot of the side characters, almost feel superficial because of their lack of development. Honestly, part of that is the fact that we're getting to see them through Theo's biased narration, but I think there's a few characters that are a big part of his life that we don't get enough development from. Hobie, for example. He is Theo's only solid parental figure throughout the book--he's with Hobie in the youth chapters as well as his adult chapters--and we barely get any of Hobie and Theo's relationship, which I found kind of disappointing.
Z: Absolutely. On writing characters and their development in general, Donna Tartt's writing of female characters is really lacking. In The Goldfinch (and The Secret History), her writing of female characters lacks any depth at all.
K: Her female characters don't really provide anything of substance to the story, which is unfortunate. They are all just there as an accessory to the main character instead of as someone who furthers their development.
Z: I mean, I'm not a writer, so I have a hard time seriously critiquing a book in a structural way. But the lack of side character development and female representation is something I think could have been expanded on.
The Goldfinch, as a whole, is a beautifully written book. The internal monologue and descriptions are stunning and the language is mature and artistic. Not to romanticize tragedy and grief, but Theo's plethora of struggles and flaws are something that make The Goldfinch so intense and so hard to put down. It's almost uncomfortable making because it's so raw and reflects things we may not want to look at in ourselves. Theo doesn't experience any sort of positive character growth until approximately the last ten pages of the book. He wallows and he struggles until he has this moment of clarity. That is not to say that The Goldfinch, after all it's chaos and pain has a happy ending-- it doesn't. Donna Tartt doesn't seem to write happy endings. But she does write hopeful ones. In the last few pages of the book we finally get a look at the direction Theo's life is going from that moment forward. His revelation and internal thoughts leave the reader with a sense of hope if nothing else.
"And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and privilege to love what Death doesn't touch. For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time--so too has love. Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small, bright, immutable part in that immortality. It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them. when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliant from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next."
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch. Pg. 962
K: The final internal monologue of The Goldfinch (above) is the part of the book that emotionally impacted me the most. I loved the whole book, but ending on this note was something that was so beautiful and made me emotional... and it still does every time I read it. It's the first time we really see an acknowledgment of love and possibility from Theo, and after his seemingly endless struggles, it's a beautiful thing to end on this note of hope.
Z: Books are powerful in mysterious ways and The Goldfinch reminded me of that. I’ve made several friends because of this book, the most notable being Kai. I stumbled upon the story in the exact opposite way from Kai- through the film (on a quest to watch all of Finn Wolfhard’s catalogue). While the film is deeply flawed, the story struck me and I haven’t been able to let go of it for over a year. Something about the lack of a happy ending, an open and ambiguous ending, that leaves room for so much fan work- art, writing or otherwise- that drew Kai and I both to create our own ideas of what the story could be, and eventually drew us to each other.
We would both recommend this book whole heartedly. It's changed both of our lives for the better and remains one of the best books that both of us have read.
K:★★★★★
Z: ★★★★☆
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