欧宝娱乐

I gave this book three stars only because of the author's ability to use mood, setting, and descriptive in an incredibly amazing way. However, this book was the biggest cocktease ever. Chekhov once said that if a gun is laying on the table in the first scene it had better be fired by the last. I firmly believe this, but Ms. Tartt seems not to. Oh well. It just seems that if you begin a book with a nine-year-old boy hanging dead from a tree, and the entire plot is driven from this, something should happen in the 555 pages of (sometimes incredibly indulgent) exposition. You'd think. Yes, she was describing class distinction and how families can be destroyed and decay, bladdy blah. I'd recommend reading A Member of the Wedding if you want to see that instead. But if you start a suspense novel and then morph it into a long-winded descriptive about redneck meth-heads mixed in with a coming of age story in the deep south...no! Pick a plot, please!

Another thing I have a personal pet peeve of is Black Mammy Characters. You know, at one time in history...like in the Civil War...we were incredibly limited as a culture as viewing black people as, I don't know, human. This is the 21st Century however, and despite the fact that people actually think the tv show Weeds is funny, it wouldn't hurt to at least try to explore the revolutionary idea that black people are human and have a vocabulary that is not limited to speaking like Jim from Huckleberry Finn. I hate when *white* authors attempt to write black characters by using tired phonetic spelling that is just so fucking sadly offensive it makes me embarrassed for them. Now, I realize that the character of Ida didn't at all times rely on sad cliches...she just did most of the time. That whole part about her not really giving a shit about the kids was probably pretty accurate. But seriously, Hattie McDaniel died a long time ago and I'm really not sure they'll be able to find a Black Mammy stock actor to play Ida in the made-for-tv movie (on a side note, I think that Jenna Malone is too old for Harriet, but the mental casting the author did was really dead-on). Really, the bottom line is that the world needs another faux Southern Gothic quasi-racial drama like a hole in the head. The world doesn't need anymore Mammies...that's what that bottle of Aunt Jamima maple syrup is for. Just eat some damned pancakes, enjoy your racial superiority, and quit writing cliche Mammies...PLEASE!

This book could have been great, but instead it was incredibly mediocre. I still don't think she's a bad writer, she's actually quite talented and has a real knack for creating mood...but man, learn when to fire that damned gun Ms. Tartt!