a dreadful, turgid, overwritten bore of a book - Rated 
Need one say more? This is the slowest and most boring book ever written. The Secret History was a treat, but this? Complete trash. The main premise is absurd, the characters feeble, the eventual denouement (if one can call it that) is weak and not in the slightest bit interesting or exciting (especially if you've waded through hundreds of waffling pages to get to it). Everything about the Little Friend is poor. I rarely write a review, but simply had to save other readers from wasting time and money on this sprawling and awful book. Shame on you, Ms Tartt, for writing it (doesn't your computer have a delete key?) and shame on the publishers (and editor) for letting it out.
The Little Friend - Rated 
Having adored Tartt's first book, The Secret History, it was in an apoplexy of excitement that I opened her second. At first the rich, multi-layered text (poetic, never patronizing) didn't disappoint. The story on the other hand, did. Wandering aimlessly between characters, The Little Friend unfolds on the weakest of plots barely and irritatingly sustained through a multiplicity of changing points of view. It's hard to understand whose story this is, and even harder to care. The beautifully crafted sentences simply can't sustain the lack of substance. Sadly this novel has all the signs of having been the product of perspiration rather than inspiration.
Good but a little long - Rated 
I found this not as great as 'the secret history; but a worthwhile read all the same. Tartt draws you in too a close knit almost claustrophic world. The middle bit does drag but it really does pick up towards the end.
Enjoyable look at small town life - Rated 
Having enjoyed reading A Secret History, it was with great relish that I opened The Little Friend and was not disappointed. The book opens with the death of Robin Cleve on a warm summers day, and the trigger for the main part of the book is the decision of his sister, Harriet, twelve years later, to find who did it.
Harriet's determination is in part predicated by the dysfunction she sees in her own family and which she blames on Robin's death the fact the killer apprehended. Tart has created a formidable character in Harriet, and whilst she is not physically attractive, she has a moral doughtiness that is appealing. In some passages it is easy to forget that she is only twelve years old, and my only real criticism of the book is whether she is capable of her actions in the last portion of the book.
Tartt rambles through Harriet's journey, in a way that allows her to introduce us to a large cast of characters whom we come to know (and in the case of the aunties, love) and there are many diverting side stories within the book. In many ways the book is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird, where the plot serves as a device to introduce a wider range of characters and look at the way small rural communities fit together.
There are odd scenes of comedy, but Tartt has succeeded in creating a claustrophobic book - whilst reading it I felt I should be sitting in a dusty lane somewhere. Her writing is a joy to read - her prose is beautifully descriptive and the pace of the book also succeeds in adding to the claustrophobia. There are some wonderfully written scenes, and whilst there are many unresolved issues at the end, for the reader, as for the characters, it is the journey that is more important than the end point.
Tactile and Tantalising - Rated
You know the feeling of sticking your hand in a sack of grain? The engulfing sense of texture that surrounds your fingers, comfortingly close, smooth yet strangely rough, tactile and claustrophobic, and ultimately entirely satisfying. Donna Tartt's prose is like that. Her plots are dense, with so many themes tied together that it can feel as though the events are crowding around you, happening just out of your sight. There is no other author who so easily marries excitement and intrigue with sumptuous description and literary reference. As it was with The Secret History, so it is with The Little Friend. There is something for absolutely everyone here, whether you are looking for the excitement of a murder mystery or the insight and subtle illusions of literary fiction.
With The Secret History, Donna Tartt achieved the unusual combination of critical acclaim and international success. Her second novel, The Little Friend, a decade in the writing, was finally published in 2002. It tells the tale of Harriet, a precocious twelve year old whose once wealthy family is still reeling from the death of her older brother Robin when she was a baby. Since then her father has moved to another city, her mother can barely raise herself from bed long enough to smoke a cigarette and her elder sister Alison is so timid she barely says a word. So Harriet, accompanied by her only friend Hely, sets out to solve the riddle of Robin's mysterious murder and reap vengeance on the man she suspects. But with her comfortable family life falling apart all around her Harriet is forced to face up to the adult world, with all its struggles and ambiguity. The result is a delicious journey through the internal world of a twelve year old girl, as she struggles to locate her place in the wider world.
The complex plot and myriad themes keep the reader guessing to the end but this is a less intense offering than The Secret History. At 555 pages of tiny print it is far longer and much slower. Much of it is taken up with building the setting and developing a real sense of the characters and their small Mississippi town. Harriet is brilliantly construed, her thought process and intense emotions feel incredibly familiar and believable.
However, it is also a little too long and there are passages in the middle which you feel could have been better edited. It is not as good as The Secret History, partly because the claustrophobia and mystery is often broken by the slow pace. However, as it builds to its convergent climax the last hundred or so pages are as good as anything she has written and the lack of a conclusive ending leaves the reader guessing. Donna Tartt has claimed that she does reveal the identity of Robin's murder somewhere in the plot, but if that is the case then few people have discovered the answer. That is one of the best things about this, the density of plot construction and sheer number of recurring ideas mean this is a book to read and then reread again and again. Donna Tartt is a joy to read, one of the best present day writers anywhere in the world. Read her stuff...read it now!
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