i can definitely see why this book is so highly regarded! i enjoyed it and thought it was a good story. though the characters made it tough to like them, they were so compelling and drove the story forward well. i definitely felt gut-wrenched for theo quite often, despite how grating he could be.

one thing that is pretty inconsequential but stood out as bothersome to me was the amount of times tartt used tooth aches as pain metaphors like i swear she did it like every 100 pages or something, it was ridiculous.

overall i enjoyed this and am glad i finally read it!