I honestly don’t know if I should give three or four stars. Four for pure talent by Tartt. She’s an amazing writer and some places of this book genuinely made me tear up from the way she simply turned a phrase. Three stars because there were some places that felt the pacing dragged on and on. Really, I oscillated between being riveted by sections to wanting to abandon it altogether, sometimes within a single chapter. Definitely not a feel-good, happy book full of warmth, but there are glimpses there…but certainly gritty and seedy, too.