like most people I read “the secret history” first & fell in love with how donna tartt writes her characters. theo decker felt like a real person to me & I already know that I will be thinking about him & this book for a long time. I felt a lot more emotionally connected to him & hobie & the other characters than I did while reading about the characters in “the secret history.” although I feel like “the goldfinch” is “better” than “the secret history” I still give both 4 stars just because there were some moments when I felt the story dragged. I appreciate how long donna tarrt spends on a book. you can tell that she wants you to immerse yourself in these characters, but at a certain point I start to get antsy & want to move on. the final pages though were really memorable & I feel accomplished in having finished it.