I read this because I'd enjoyed "The Goldfinch". This book I didn't care for. It held me until the end, but I walked away from it feeling like I'd read an extended summary of a college episode of Law & Order: SVU.

The first hundred pages had me excited. There's a kid at an Ivy League school and he's dropped out of all of his classes to major in Greek Classics. He's also trying to figure out the weird rich kids he's in class with. You can go anywhere from there.

What I ended up reading about was one really rich kid that had deep emotional issues with psychotic tendencies and his enabling friends that stuck around because they were financially dependent on him. There's no mystery or wonder there for me. If he wasn't from East Coast old money he would be easily recognizable - a murderer.

I think Law & Order has really spoiled me for these stories. If I'm going to be read about a murder at a sleepy college campus, there has to be something driving it besides a group of teens that got bored and decided to throw a bacchanal. I should have read this book ten years ago when it first came out, it would have been fresher then.

I still made it to the end and didn't give up, which means it was well written. I'd still read anything written by Tartt. I may not agree, but I like the way her mind works.