This is a pretty big let down for me. I really enjoyed The Secret History last year. I found it compelling without too much melodrama, and in the end, its messaged resonated beyond the elite school setting it fictionalized, and made me connect with it. It elevated the campus novel into an allegory on the dangers of elitism and intellectual arrogance. This book, The Little Friend, is very different, which comes with its own merits and flaws. To be fair, it would be too easy for Tartt go back to the same territory for her follow up tom her almost universal best seller, especially when there is a decade gap between one book and the next. It is truly admirable of Tartt, and showcases not only her inventiveness and willingness to try new things; it shows she is writer who will not be tied down by her bestseller status, and will go where her mind and heart takes her, and not what genre is popular. I have said some nice things, but it only makes me feel even more disappointed than I am in this plain, overlong book. The story concerns one Harriet Dufresnes, a ten-year-old girl, wise beyond her years, searching for her brothers killer twelve years after he was murdered in the small, racially tense town of Alexandria, Mississippi. As she treks across this town with her submissive friend Hely, she encounters dangers she couldn’t imagine as her family is still reeling from the murders. While there is some suspense, and Harriet isn’t too Juno-like annoying, the book is just boring overall, with it being 600 pages, that basically killed it for me. I never thought meth labs and traps made of live snakes could put me to sleep so quickly. It passes in my book, but definitely not by much.
Rating: 3/5
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