I am giving this book 3 stars for now, but I get a feeling that the more I talk/think about it, I will bump it up to a 4, just because the things that it did well, it did really well. But that's not the whole book, so let's get into it.

I swear I got into this book with such an open mind that it almost hurt. I do think that The Goldfinch was ridiculously good and that The Secret History changed my life and will forever have a place on the list of my favourites (and yes, I am a pretentious bastard), but I tried not to let that skew my enjoyment, or lack thereof, of this book. I saw in a lot of places that at best it just fell flat with its intended audience and at worst this is just not that good, all while big publications like the Guardian praise it. The thing is, that after I started reading it, with my very open mind, I hated it. So much. I trashed it with everyone I know, actively having to force myself to read just so I can finish it and be able to move on with my life. I thought that I will consider this one of my big dejections in life. After a (long) while though, probably to the amazement of every one of my acquaintances who had to endure me ranting about this book and its inability to make me want to finish it for a whole month, I started actively liking and enjoying it. Some time after the 2/3 or maybe 3/4 of the book, a switch just flipped and I finally understood the huge sadness of Harriet's situation, her alone-ness, if you will. I started to actively feel bad for her while at the same time sympathizing with her loneliness. I was simultaneously the extremely lonely little girl in a world that is too big for her and the adult woman reading about her and wanting to comfort the little girl, to give her some of the experience that I have and to tell her that it will get better, you just have to wait a bit. I wanted to shout at her "You won't always be who you are now and sometimes that's a good thing!". So, that's a huge positive on Tartt's ability, I'd say. You're probably going to hear about "the switch" a lot, just a warning.
But let's start dissecting it. The beginning of this book is so long, unnecessarily so. It really only ended at about the 200-page mark, which is almost a third of it (my copy, at least, is 669 pages long). I do not need every detail at the beginning of the book, I am a smart individual who can draw conclusions. But it insists on holding my hand and showing me everything itself, making sure that I am reaching the understanding that it wants me to. I think the very slow pace, if there is even a pace, is what I found so angering in the beginning. I just wanted something to finally happen and it made me wait a long time.
The characters, as an ensemble, are not interesting enough, too many, and introduced all at once for the most part. The aunts, including grandma, are in my opinion one too many to stand out from each other; the parents too black and white to find something interesting in them, even in the latter half; the best friend character too eager, to the point of seeming fake (I know that he is a child and so I should judge him based on a different set of standards, but even by those, oh boy was he annoying). Towards the end, after I had that change of heart I talked about, I understood Hely's role, but at that point, I was too tired of him to care anymore. Especially after the incident at The M, after which he became downright stupid and somehow even more annoying than in the first half. I liked the sister, but I honestly can't say if I did so as a testament to her character or just by comparison to the others. - The supporting cast was the best part of both of her other books, and that needs to be said. Henry-and-Boris-apologists, welcome. I am one of you. Yes, I added this interruption just to say that I, too, am trash. -
Onto the topic of protagonists. I did not vibe with the main character. Which is really odd, seeing that she seems to be tailored exactly to my preferences. You could argue that I see too much of myself in her to like her, but that would be wrong. If anything, Harriet should be the biggest wish fulfillment for me, getting to act exactly how I would have liked to be able to when I was her age, at the same time with being given almost absolute freedom. 12 year old me would have been downright in love with her. (Here is wherein other circumstances I would have used the phrase "wet dream", but she is 12. I am just adding it here, because I want y'all to understand the power of the feeling that expression conveys, without having to use it in context and thereby make it gross. Still, I trust that you get it, I should have adored her.) But for the 24-year-old me who read this book, she seemed too plastic, too perfect in her role. Like that kid at the middle school recital that took it too seriously. Yes, after the switch I started understanding her more, but somehow as a concept, not as a person. I felt what she felt, which is that huge loneliness that characterizes her, but I was not her. And I think I expected that going into this book, but that may just be my fault. In the end, I understood that her actions are the direct effect of the fact that she is 12, but that didn't make me feel less annoyed when she did a lot of stuff. And I am not sure that she changed that much during the course of the book. Her personality at the end is similar enough to the one in the beginning, so much so that I would not consider the little difference "growth". And if so, then why is she the main character? I can think of a few people who went through much more than she did and it changed them more noticeably, so why not make them the protagonist? (There is a counterargument to this, I am sure, about how A Little Friend is a book about the small things in life, not the big ones. But I am mostly here to rant, so no thank you.)
And that being said, we cannot talk characters without talking about Danny Ratliff. I absolutely adore him as a character. His development, his layers, his addiction and spiral, the way he interacted with both the real world and the one that slowly develops in his mind, everything is so masterfully created. But if we are being honest, the whole Ratliff family was the crown jewel of this novel, we can say it, it's all right. Their dynamic is realistic and their descent into their individual madnesses is believable. They are interesting. And they are not redeemed for one second. The book never tries to tell you that just because Farish was not a part of the actual robberies that makes him innocent, just as the bad childhood and the desire to do better, even if never fulfilled, doesn't make Danny a good person. What it makes him is multifaceted, and that is good storytelling, good character building. I like an interesting antagonist (cause I will not go as far as calling him an anti-hero because that's too far even for me) and I can like him as a character without wanting him to be redeemed or needing to see him as a troubled-but-ultimately-good person. And after my epiphany, I realized that he is so young. Contrary to popular belief, I can still do math, I just never think of it as an option. So when it finally dawned on me to add two numbers together and by this get a third, I got out my little pencil and pad and this is what I found: Robin was 9 when he died. Harriet is now 12, but like 12 and a half because we know her birthday is in december and the novel takes place during the summer. It adds up to 21, maybe 22 depending on 9 years and how many months old was Robin and the time of his death (this may be specified somewhere, but I don't remember and I am too lazy to look it up). At a huge stretch, we could say that Danny is 23, depending on the age difference between him and Robin, while the two of them are still close enough in age to be in the same class. I am almost 25, so you know, to me he is a baby. Fresh out of the womb. A lot of what he did or does is still not excusable, because boys will be boys held accountable for their actions, but almost understandable. I am so annoyed at the fact that we never find out for sure what happens to him at (after?) the end, even though I know that that's probably intentional. I. Need. To Know. So yeah, he needed his own paragraph. (And after proofreading it I realize that I sound like a Danny apologist, but I swear I am not. Apparently, I am okay with murder and having a drug empire or whatever, but I draw the line at shooting people, especially poor black people, in broad daylight, I guess. Which I could argue that is pretty woke of me, but it's actually just basic decency, so I won't.)
Normally now I would talk about the plot, but that word is a stretch for what this book is. It's so character-driven that they could almost be in a sterile environment, if the narrators, especially Harriet, wouldn't insist on naming and describing every fucking plant like I am reading a damned Jules Verne! Anyway, more on that later. Back to the progression, let's call it that, of the novel. Seeing as it's a first-person perspective novel, the eyes through which we learn the story is pivotal. I think it's always tricky to have the main character be a child in a book aimed at adults. On top of that, the author gambles with multiple narrators. If I remember correctly, those are Harriet, Hely, Danny, Eugene, and one of the aunts (Edith, maybe?). The only older one is presented as being oblivious to the "main story arc", that of the rivalry between Harriet and Danny, as well as to the individual story arcs of Hely's unsuccessful pursuit of his manic-pixie-dream-girl/girl-next-door; Danny's descent into madness induced by the combination of the weight of conditioning from his childhood, the ungodly amount of drugs and the stress he himself puts on his body and mind; and of course Harriet's huge pain in the face of her condition as an extremely intelligent child and the extreme alienation that it brings. The moment in time when you are too "grown up" to enjoy spending time with people your age, but young enough to go mainly ignored by the adults in your life. Especially when said adults are as dysfunctional as her family is. I guess that in this sense, Edie's parts are meant to highlight another facet of Harriet's (that's how you know she is the main character, after all). In the same breath I will argue that Eugene's POVs are not meant to flesh out Danny (and as such putting him on the same level in the novel as Harriet) but as a calm, neutral respite. There is a reason he is the preacher, after all. So with so much of the narrative being presented through the eyes and minds of such young people, will it pay off for the older readers? Will they feel immersed enough to relieve their long past young years or will they be alienated by presenting them something that they vaguely remember but feel very disconnected from? The answer, even if it feels like a cop-out on my part and you must forgive me, I think it's entirely subjective. As I already said, I thought the book will ask me to do the former (the feeling like a kid again one), I expected myself to do that one. And then I didn't. And I still liked it. It somehow made sense. I accepted that I am not the girl and I am no longer me, I am an omniscient observer into this little moment in time, seen through multiple perspectives. And that's okay. So I think she did it, found the formula.
That said, the overall structure of the novel needed more work. As I already stated, the beginning drags for too long and there are a lot of things that we could have skipped, making this a much more enjoyable experience. If I may be divisive for a second, I would even argue that the whole "aunts" subplot should have been removed completely and only have the grandma character show up. Personally, I would limit Hely's appearances too, but that must be just because I really really don't like him. I like big books, you all know that, but as this was written, it was too long, unnecessarily so. And the ending... I don't know. I understand why it gives me so little closure because that's the kind of book this is. But I wanted more answers (especially about Danny, did I mention anywhere that I like him?) I enjoyed the feeling it gave me, though. It was atmospheric as hell. Contrary to expectations raised by who I am as a person, I have not read a lot of gothic, especially southern gothic literature, but I would assume that that's the best description of it. The constant sun and heat, the lush plant life, the empty vastness of the setting, I was there, even if outside it was january and snowing. Say what you want about Donna, but she knows how to set the mood. Even if talking about the plants got pretty repetitive after a while. (Or maybe I am just stupid cause I don't know what any plants are called, especially in english, so when Harriet kept naming them, all I could imagine was green; my brain did not do that an-exact-image-of-the-plant-in-question-in-my-mind thing that was probably expected of me.)
There are some topics that I feel the need to address, but not necessarily comment on, because I am simply not equipped to do so. Those are wealth inequity and race(ism). The setting is small-town Louisiana in the '70s. The book shows both very poor and well-off characters and I think it ties their stories very much to their wealth, especially the poor ones. I refuse to believe that every poor family is like the Ratliff's or the Odeon's (criminal, negligent, sometimes stupid), but those are the only representations that we see. On the other hand, the only black characters are either so episodic that they don't matter (and are shot at by two high white men for amusement) or working for the main characters. I am sure there is a lot to say about Ida and her relationship with the girls in her care or about the family's treatment of Odean at the end or about the numerous mentions of Blacks. But I am a white girl from eastern Europe, so I don't feel that I should be the person saying them. I am also a bitter lower-middle-class socialist, who definitely doesn't know enough about the economy and economical disparities or other smart words like that to talk on the first subject. So I won't. But I felt the need to point these themes out, so you know what you get into.
In conclusion. Would I recommend this book? The answer is maybe, with a question mark at the end. If someone presents it to you after reading it, it may sound interesting (as exemplified by me and my roommate this morning) but the act of reading it itself is not that fun. It wonders a lot, it meanders, it drags on and if you don't identify with Harriet I really think you will not enjoy it. Or maybe you will. I just hope that this is nobody's introduction to Donna Tartt, cause I feel like that would do the author and the reader a big disservice. Other than that, idk.

It’s awful being a child,” she said, simply, “at the mercy of other people.