Rating: 
Summary: Immensely unsatisfying ending
Review: Just finished this one. Let's just say that after reading 625 pages of a novel where the little boy gets murdered on page 1, it's hugely disappointing and appallingly cheap not to FINISH THE STORY and let the readers know who committed the crime.I would have given this 1 star, but Tartt is a good writer and having grown up in the South I thought her dialog was true-to-life. Otherwise, don't waste your time. I also agree that the book would benefit from some serious editing. How many descriptions of the trees do we really need?
Rating: 
Summary: Donna Tartt ignores her responsibilities to reader at end
Review: I have mixed feelings about this novel. To its advantage, it is an entertaining story. Some of the passages are as florid as a magnolia tree in springtime. Each character is firmly delineated and different from any other character, lending a fine drama to all the interactions. The Publisher's Weekly review noted that one of the African-American characters, Ida, is perhaps a wee bit stereotyped. I agree, especially with the way the character speaks. The novel could have been more rounded if Ida and her neighbors were also granted narrative space, outside of the company of their white employers. However, author Tartt's descriptions of the interior minds of rednecks is refreshing. Here, poor Southern whites quibble over manners just as much as their richer cousins across the tracks. The rednecks are 3-D characters, and certainly steel the show at times. The way Danny flirts around his older brooding brother Farish will be familiar to anyone who tip toes around someone likely to go off any moment for no reason. Tartt captures this perfectly: the way Danny watches his tone of voice, keeps his face neutral at all times, always trying to placate Farish by figuring out first what he wants and then giving it to him. The stately grandmother, Edith, is a perfectly captured white southern lady with the good name, the lost money and a whole lot of bite behind her bark. She dispenses Scotch-Irish maxims all while ignoring her grandchildren's obvious pleas for sympathy. Harriet, the prepubescent protagonist, thinks and acts exactly like a precocious seventh grader. I can't help but wonder if Tartt was inspired by Harriet the Spy, or at least loved the book like I did when I was 12. Harriet thinks with innocent childhood logic, makes conclusions based on false premises, and sees conspiracy in the way the paper towels hang underneath the cabinets. Her life and times in The Little Friend brought back hazy memories of when I had one best friend to whom I told everything, summer vacation was so long I actually wanted to go back to school, and best teachers were "cool." How surprised I was, then, when Harriet actually stumbles (bumbles) upon a crime scene and gets herself into a very tight spot. Every good story novel should end with a bang. Nearing the end of Tartt's longish novel, we are in the palm of her hand, right where she wants us. It is disappointing then, that Tartt fails to send us off with a satisfied "A-HA" or "I never imagined that ..." or "I knew all along that .." I will warn future readers that while they may regret when the book is finished as reading it is fun, the ending is most disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Art Mirrors Life, Accurately & Gorgeously
Review: Donna Tartt's "The Little Friend" is an excellent book that has been unfairly slandered by many readers, though most critics seem to have realized (correctly) that the book truly deserves praise. In her second novel Tartt delivers a story with no easy answers and no easily dismissed characters, no convienient forces of evil and no happy endings. The plot of the novel revolves around twelve year-old Harriet DuFresnes and her efforts to bring her older brother's murderer(s?) to justice. A brilliant child, Harriet pursues her course single-mindedly and unknowingly upsets the delicate constellations of how things are in her family in Alexandria, Mississippi. Tartt portrays all of her many, widely different characters with compassion and humor, but above all a clear eye, managing to convey everyone's decencies but also their failings. I've never read a book that so clearly--and chillingly--depicts the perfunctory brutalities well-meaning adults inflict on children without even knowing it, for instance. Nor have I ever read a book that has made me so angry about racial and social injustices, never mind that "The Little Friend" is set in the 70s. Happily, Tartt's gift for black humor is more fully employed here than in "The Secret History," her first (also excellent) novel. If I had to pinpoint one reason why this book has fared so poorly among the reading public, both on amazon.com and among people I've talked to in the real world, I would say it is because that Tartt does not flinch from portraying the fundamental injustices, hardships, and sufferings that fill most people's lives. At one point I had to put the book down, riveting as it is, because it was so depressingly true to life. In this its brilliance is revealed; despite the many inequities it portrays, "The Little Friend" still manages to convey a satisfying ending, as Harriet comes through her self-engineered ordeal to a well-earned, if sadly adult, self-knowledge and wisdom.
Rating: 
Summary: Huge book, huge waste of time.
Review: It was already painful within the first few chapters, but I trudged on giving it the benefit of a doubt.. Boy was I wrong. I just finished it last night and I feel completely cheated and lied to. This book is long, pretentious and immensely unsatisfying. All the characters are unbelievable and unbelievably uninteresting. Harriet especially is overbearing and tiring.. I could go on but as you can see, over 400 other people already have. 'The Little Friend?' ...More like 'How Not to Write.'
Rating:
Summary: Not worth the investment (time or money)!
Review: Three words: long, pretentious, and unending.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointing.
Review: I have never written a review before but I felt the need.The end of this book just infuriated me. Every critic that proclaimed this book to be "amazing" must have been high. I didn't mind the 600+ pages or the endless descriptions of sights, sounds, and smells. I actually enjoy a long book with attention to detail. However, I did mind the many hints that pervaded the book that never seemed to go anywhere. I felt that Tartt was tired of her own book towards the end and,instead of investing more time and energy into it, through it by the wayside. I just wish I had.
Rating:
Summary: I hated The Secret History and I hate this one too
Review: I hated TSH because of its vapid, arrogant, slick, pseudo-intellectual characters. Still, I realized that this author could write like noboby's business, so I decided to buy this one used and give her work another try. Don't get me wrong -- this novel came out of the gate running. Good set up, bad follow- through. I don't know what happened. Around page 187, my boredom reached its peak and I wanted to throw it in the trash. This author can WRITE -- and I enjoy adult books about children very much, (my favorite book is "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving), and here she created a fine, realistic Southern setting, (which I found a trifle cliche, but touche), interesting characters and a good mystery plot, and . . . it fell flat, and as someone mentioned earlier, it had no resolution. There are no novels more annoying to me than those with bad resolutions, with unanswered questions, with a crappy denouement. And it takes 600 pages, HARDBACK, to get to the bad resolution!!!!! Ouch! Someone else mentioned the word "editor". Certainly that would have helped, because most of the book is about the 12 year old heroine and her little boy friend running around town eating popsicles, trying to catch snakes, and spying on rednecks. But even better than that, PLEASE don't anyone write a novel again leaving questions dangling in the air. Especially not a 600 page novel with questions dangling!!! I could have used my valuable time to read something else!
Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but I expected more
Review: I loved Donna Tart's debut novel, THE SECRET HISTORY. I eager awaited her follow-up and was hoping to be blown away like I was with HISTORY. While this novel is good, it is not great. The beginning is very strong and as usual, Tartt is wonderful at fleshing out her characters. Still, I suppose I was expecting more. At the very least, I wanted a hint to the idenity of Robin's killer. The fact that this was never revealed seemed rather cheeky. Also, in regards to the length, I definately feel that a good editor could have cut 20-50 pages without sacrificing the plot. I recall that a lot of reviews I read for HISTORY complained about how long it was but after having read both, I can honestly say that it didn't feel like a chore to wade through all those pages. THE LITTLE FRIEND on the other hand did. Overall, good book but expect some disappointment at the end.
Rating:
Summary: "Literary" is no excuse for unresolved plotlines.
Review: I never write reviews, but I'm making an exception here to take issue with the people who think that tying up your plotlines makes you John Grisham. Yes, Donna Tartt is not writing genre mystery here. Yes, she is writing in the tradition of Faulkner rather than Grisham. In her lavish descriptions, her excellent characterization, and her complex web of subtle details, she succeeds in following the tradition of other great Southern writers. But Faulkner knew how to wrap up a plot. Faulkner never wrote a novel in which every single subplot is left dangling for no good reason, in which hints are dropped left and right that never lead anywhere. If Donna Tartt is trying to follow in his footsteps, she's failed miserably. As other reviewers have said, I'm not looking for a nice, fuzzy, happy Hollywood ending. I'm looking for an ending, period. And The Little Friend is missing that. "Real life doesn't have an ending" is no excuse; if this were real life, we'd be able to find out whether Harriet is ever questioned in the water tower, whether she really has epilepsy, whether Robin's killer is ever caught, what happens to Danny, and a myriad of other questions Tartt leaves dangling for no good reason. Since this isn't real life, she can choose to reveal whatever information she wants to, and she's intentionally stopped giving information at a crucial point in the storyline. That's a choice. And it's a deceitful choice, unfair to any reader who wants, quite reasonably, to know what happens next. Anyone who is looking for a literary mystery that's more than a mystery, in which complex plot threads are all tied together to enchanting effect, in which no detail is given at random and in which the author never drops a subplot, would be better served reading Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost or Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Both are excellent examples of what The Little Friend might have been, but isn't.
Rating:
Summary: A Little Unfriendly
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book, in spite of the somewhat daunting page total, because the premise was interesting and it just hooked me. Immediately I was drawn into the rich and sumptuous southern community that Tartt paints, as well as into the lives of the characters with all their idiosyncracies.
After getting hooked, and wanting to know what happens to Harriet (the main character) and also wanting her to solve the mystery of her brother Robin's murder, I was sorely disappointed when the book seemed to crash off course in the middle. I wasn't sure where the book was going; and I wasn't entirely sure that Tartt herself knew where the book was going. Harriet believes she knows who Robin's killer is, but has no evidence. The story veers off to tell that of the Ratliff family, with their poor-white-trash background, and criminal and drug addictions. This plot doesn't fit with the world Tartt had created for Harriet and distracts from the narrative. I can understand the comparison/contrast being made between the two lifestyles, but their story seems to be a novel in itself, and does nothing to enhance Harriet's character. In fact, through her interactions with the Ratliff's, Harriet becomes annoying and the reader wants to see her fail.
It's not surprising that critics loved Tartt's sophomore book and that readers didn't. As much as I looked forward to this book, it shouldn't have surprised me to be disappointed in it, since I barely managed to get through the first chapter of "A Secret History," Tartt's debut bestseller. I'm just glad I bought the book at discount and didn't pay full price.
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