Can you give me some thoughts on what you enjoyed about the book? I read it several years ago after reading many many glowing reviews but I just couldn't get much out of the book at all. What did I miss?
I think everything in it is fairly subtle (relative to modern television at least) and there are a lot of them. It'd be reductive for me to refer to it as a coming of age story, but I often do that despite knowing it's wrong, but coming of age stories generally have to hit me over the head with their point before I stop seeing it as a character piece.
For me, the themes in Goldfinch are about art (and the power it can hold over us,) how messy relationships can be despite good intentions (and how much care they require,) the role of beauty in the world, and the search for identity.
In the book. That start… the writing had me feel stress and despair in a way that no other book has managed. I think the technique it used was giving you a heads up on what will happen but then glimpses of hope that would make the hopelessness even more evident. I am not a writer, so cannot distill it fully, but the experience was palpable.
