Un juego de niños

Escrito por Donna Tartt

Narrado por Mara Campanelli

La determinación de una niña de doce años por llegar al fondo del crimen que se llevó a su hermano cuando ella era solo un bebé.

La novela que demostró que Donna Tartt tenía mucho más que decir.

UNO DE LOS MEJORES LIBROS DE LOS ÚLTIMOS 25 AÑOS SEGÚN AMAZON

Desde siempre, los Cleve han tenido la sana costumbre de rememorar juntos la historia familiar. Todos hablan de todo, pero nadie se atreve a recordar aquella tarde de verano en que el pequeño Robin apareció ahorcado en un árbol del patio trasero de la casa. La sorpresa y el dolor trastornaron a la señora Cleve, que desde entonces deambula como un fantasma por las habitaciones sucias mientras el padre cura sus males en brazos de otras mujeres y la abuela saca fuerzas de flaqueza para dominar tanta locura.

Harriet, la hermana menor de Robin, era un bebé cuando tuvo lugar la desgracia, y ahora es una niña de doce años con las rodillas llenas de rasguños y el ánimo peleón de quien acaba de estrenarse en la vida. Solo ella parece preocuparse por averiguar el nombre del asesino, pero ¿será capaz de resolver un caso que la policía ya tenía archivado?

Muy lejos de la sensiblería y muy cerca de la gran literatura, Donna Tartt nos devuelve al tiempo de nuestra infancia con Un juego de niños, una novela tan hermosa como esas largas tardes de verano en que da lástima crecer.

La crítica ha dicho...
«Una novela sagaz que te lleva a un lugar donde vale la pena quedarse.»
The New York Times

«Donna Tartt es una escritora increíblemente buena: profunda, sugerente. Una narradora extraordinaria.»
Stephen King

«En una era de escasez literaria, Tartt nos invita a un auténtico festín.»
Independent

«No has leído nada igual. [...] Gracias al dominio del suspense de Tartt, este libro cautiva a todo tipo de lector.»
The Guardian

«Tartt te atrapa en esta historia serpenteante como si fuera pegamento. Su capacidad para evocar el sur profundo del siglo pasado es excepcional. [...] Una novela excelente, fascinante.»
Marie Claire (Libro del mes)

«Destinado a convertirse en clásico: un libro que los lectores jóvenes y precoces cogerán de las bibliotecas de sus padres y devorarán con un entusiasmo oculto, emocionados al descubrir a una escritora que parece leerles la mente a la vez que les ofrece los frutos agridulces del conocimiento exótico y prohibido.»
New York Times Book Review

«En esta novela aparece Harriet, uno de los personajes más cautivadores y desarrollados que puedas llegar a encontrar. [...] La mano de Tartt es maravillosa, fluida, visual.»
The Times

«Un juego de niños parece destinado a convertirse en un clásico singular. [...] Te atrapa como un cuento de hadas, pero no te reconforta con la certeza de que todo es pura fantasía.»
The New York Times Book Review

«Una desbordante, inquieta humanidad propia de Dickens.»
The New York Times Book Review

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Penguin Random House Audio
• Traductor: Gemma Rovira Ortega
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 25 sept 2025
• ISBN: 9788426433756

Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt nació en 1963 en Greenwood, Mississippi, y se educó en el Benington College y la Universidad de Mississippi. Voraz lectora, domina el latín, el griego y el francés. Puede citar de memoria a Santo Tomás, Platón, Buda, Dante, Proust, Poe, Salinger y a su mayor ídolo, T. S. Eliot. En 1992 se dio a conocer con El secreto (Lumen, 2014), unánimemente celebrada por la crítica, a la que siguieron Un juego de niños (Lumen, 2014) y la aclamada El jilguero (Lumen, 2014), ganadora del National Book Critics Circle Award en 2013, del Premio Pulitzer a la mejor obra de ficción en 2014 y ha sido considerada uno de los cien mejores libros del siglo según The New York Times. Ha escrito, además, cuatro relatos cortos y tres obras de no ficción.

Comentarios para Un juego de niños

[joligula · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The Little Friend by Donna Tartt has a little bit of everything going for it. As good as this book is…it felt like reading through cheese and concrete. And I mean this in a good way. Tartt is able to develop such stunning visuals in geography, personality and emotion. In short. She is almost the perfect writer and an assassin with a pen. What some may mistake as a huge slog is most certainly her ability to duck, weave and dodge all while painting us an amazing image of the things that are taking place. I think I enjoyed this more than the Gold Finch simply because it flowed better. It was just as dense but made more sense in the long run. This is a sad story that takes place in the 60s and early 70s and events that circle a small town in Mississippi. Tartt nailed the atmosphere of childhood in that era and all the little things that made growing up important. The fierce determination of childhood fantasy and the droned out indifference of adults who seem to have lost their sense of wonder. I think Tartt is trying to tell us to never loose our sense of wonder and just because we are grown up does not mean it has to go way. I did have a problem with continuity. The mention of Star Wars kind made me scratch my head. She is one of those writers you would just love to sit and pick their brain but she seems like an almost complete version of a grown up Harriet. And that would make any discussions impossible.

[denmoir · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Well written, interesting characters, vivid portrayal of the American south, unsatisfying ending

[thisisstephenbetts · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

Wow, this book is quite the disappointment! I found myself really drawn into the story, enjoying it, and caring about the characters. But then the last, say, 5% really went off a cliff, actually getting worse as it got to the end of the book. So many things wrong... I didn't find the climax of the plot satisfying or particularly consistent with the feel of the book; there was too much material after the climax, which led me to think, or hope, that there would be something more to better tie things together; so much stuff was left undealt with; the very last chapter ends in an inconsequential conversation with a weak pay-off.

The main character is a Mississippian girl, who was a baby when her brother was murdered. Now nearly a teenager, and precocious and uncompromising with it, she wants to revenge her brother's death. There's probably a genre of stories about headstrong children learning too much too fast about the adult world - I felt a distinct familiarity with the general tenor of the book.

Passing over the ending, I did enjoy reading the book a lot, although I did sometimes feel that Tartt wasn't at the top of her game. Some passages left me struggling to know what was going on. These things just make it feel like it was rushed out a bit (and it could have been a little shorter than its 600 odd pages - but, again, perhaps she didn't have time to write a shorter novel).

And that's the annoying thing - particularly having emotionally invested in the characters for 600 pages: there's nothing wrong with the book that wasn't fixable. And it could have been good.

[natalieriley · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Donna Tartt is an amazing writer. I would love to know more about her and for her to write more books. This is my second book by her; I previously read The Goldfinch and absolutely loved it. It’s one of my all time favorite books. I was unaware of this book until I received a signed copy for Christmas a couple of years ago. I finally got around to reading it. While I liked the writing and story well enough to stick with it, I wasn’t sure where the story was headed. I was intrigued and enjoying the characters of Harriet and Hely so I stuck with it. These two kids sure knew how to get into mischief and push the limits. The death of Harriet’s older brother, when she was a baby, was a mystery I wanted to see a resolution. No one knew what happened nor was an arrest ever made for the murder. The story became pretty intense and my curiosity was peaked. Unfortunately, the ending was flat. It seemed like the author pulled together a vague ending that not only left me wanting more, it was like she got tired of writing and just ended the book. At 555 pages, I was pretty committed to the story and think it deserved a way better ending. I would have gladly hung out for another 50 or even 100 pages for a thorough ending. Lastly, the title of the book never made sense to me. Maybe I’m clueless and missed the connection. And the cover is totally creepy. Overall, I fell in love Harriet and Hely and miss them already. They are the reason I’m giving this book 4 stars.

[nancyjean19 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

I loved The Goldfinch, liked The Secret History, and thought this one was okay. I think my experience with the book did suffer from the promise of the back cover, which made it seem more like a murder mystery or at least a dark exploration of a troubled family. Instead, it was the story of a precocious, brave girl and the places where her story intersected with a family of low-life meth dealers. I have no idea what the point of all the aunts was. I enjoyed the dialogue and her friend Hely, and spacey Allison and their troubled mom, but I wish it had all resolved into something more.

[linda.a. · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I loved this complex, multi-layered story when I first read it in 2006 and my appreciation of its richness was perhaps even greater when I needed to re-read for a reading group. The fact that it requires a lengthy commitment of time from its readers is more than compensated for by the rewarding experience of feeling totally immersed in the lives of the characters.
There is a slow, meticulous build-up of character and plot and the author's writing style is powerfully evocative, both in her depiction of small-town life in Mississippi, and in her portrayal of her characters, particularly Harriet, the twelve-year-old heroine of the story. It's a novel which encompasses humour, pathos, guilt, sorrow, cruelty, evil, religion, racial and class prejudice and, as a central theme, the ongoing effects on a family following bereavement, exploring these issues through the eyes of a child. Harriet is given a very strong voice; she is serious, passionate, funny, brave, determined and obsessional; a lonely child who cares desperately about righting a wrong and who struggles to make sense of her world. Although Harriet is the central character, I found each of the other characters equally clearly portrayed, with none seeming superfluous to the storyline.
I loved the slow, increasingly menacing pace of the novel; it felt almost like experiencing the action in real time, sometimes even in slow-motion. This had the effect of considerably increasing the powerful impact the story had on me.

[erisprincipia · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I love books where childhood hits against the reality of the world and one's family.

The author deftly weaves very common actions with a child's wonder. That wonder is a handy tool, a the heroine sails forth to cross boundaries in search of an awful truth.

Excellent use of language, deft pacing, an all-around winner for me.

[starbox_2 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This is an absolutely fabulous read which beams the reader to a hot 1970s summer in Mississippi and the dysfunctional Cleve family. After the murder- unsolved - of their young son, twelve years earlier, the parents have drifted apart. Father lives and works away; mother is absent, distracted - the care of her remaining two daughters falling mainly to the home help, Ida, and her own mother and aunts..elderly, formerly well-to-do southerners. Elder daughter Allison still seems traumatized by the past; and the younger child, Harriet, is on the cusp of adolescence, intelligent, challenging...and determined to spend her holidays finding her brother's killer...
This is emphatically not to be read as a murder mystery- although expect some thrilling moments. Tartt does an amazing job at evoking the world of the child becoming an adult. And this is far from a world of gentility, magnolias and mansions, as the seamy side of Mississippi life figures large too, with the criminal Ratliff brothers and their cohorts; meth manufacture, mental illness, snake-handling clergymen...
Other reviewers have commented on the novel's failure to tie up the loose ends and definitively answer the important question....but I don't think that makes it a failure as a story. Harriet is the protagonist; she acts, she sets events in motion, and in life there are not always clear cut answers.
I don't think the cover does this book any favours- featuring a grotesque doll, the reader might imagine a Chucky type horror tale, whereas this is a highly literary, descriptive and classy work.
One you'll never forget.

[reganrule · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

Gracious! Less than a minute after finishing all I can say is: "Is that all there is? Really? Is. that. All. there. Is." This is Tartt's second novel--braced between her first & third in so many decades--& it is clearly her middle child, neglected in all sorts of ways.

Don't get me wrong, Tartt is a very good hack. She structures periodic, multi-clausal sentences like a pro who's had ten years to revise them. EVERY sentence is unnecessarily effusively descriptive: twee-ly perfect & utterly gritless.

To take but two random samplings as evidence:
"Even now, Weenie's death had the waxy sheen of the linoleum in Edie's kitchen; it had the crowded feel of her glass-front cabinets (an audience of plates ranked in galleries, goggling helplessly); the useless cheer of red dishcloths and cherry-patterned curtains." (355)

"Her blood pounded, her thoughts clattered and banged around her head like coins in a shaken piggy-bank and her legs were heavy, like running through mud or molasses in a nightmare and she couldn't make them go fast enough, couldn't make them go fast enough, couldn't tell if the crash and snap of twigs (like gunshots, unnaturally loud) was only the crashing of her own feet or feet crashing down the path behind her." (436)

In sum: this unnecessarily lengthy book doesn’t deliver: she doesn’t resolve the primary mystery. Is it supposed to lead us to ask “interesting” questions like: “Is Tartt--like the director Michael Haneke--intentionally withholding from her audience?” “Is Tartt subtly mocking Brett Easton Ellis by refusing to gratify her audience’s interests?” “Did she forget to finish the novel?”

I will listen if someone gives me reason to believe I am being ungenerous in my assessment of this novel.

[juva_3 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

When Harriet was only a baby, her brother was murdered in his own front yard. The culprit was never caught and the tragedy forever changed the landscape of Harriet's family. Her father has spent most of her life living apart from the family in Nashville with a mistress. Her mother has been nearly bedridden, leaving her room only rarely and never making much sense. Her older sister, Allison is depressed and weeps frequently, feeling life's misfortunes too deeply.

Despite all this, Harriet is very content with her life until one fateful summer when she determines to discover who murdered her brother. The pursuit of truth eventually leads her to a white trash redneck family living out in the woods. This collection of criminals and snake handlers have a successful meth business that is reaching a critical moment. Plagued by the paranoia their drug of choice induces they are thrown into squabbling when a little girl keeps turning up. Is she spying on their movements?

Harriet is on the trail of a mystery but the truths she uncovers will not be the ones she intends. A detailed and evocative story about the frustrations of childhood and the intricacies of grief.

[meredy_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Six-word review: Wish I'd known plot wouldn't resolve.

Extended review:

Brilliant prose, exceptional characters, vivid setting, gripping scenes, complex plot: how can a story have so many virtues and yet leave me feeling so ill-served?

I invested many hours in reading this 555-page novel, and it wasn't until I actually reached the last page that it dawned on me that the author was going to leave me in ignorance: not just about the plot's driving question but about thread after thread of subplot and secondary character.

That's not what I expected after reading the author's other two novels, and it's not what I expected from the implicit promises of this one.

It may be that that's life; but that's not a satisfying novel.

I'm not going to cite passages or quote noteworthy excerpts or praise the themes and motifs and figurative language, although I might have. Instead I'm just going to walk away; but I am going to call back over my shoulder and say, "And besides, you don't know how to conjugate 'lay.'"

[labwriter · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This novel isn't for everyone, but those who enjoy modern Southern Gothic will like it. Set in a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, all of the gothic themes are in here--focusing on gloom, terror, and certain amount of confusion of good and evil; turning institutions like religion, education, and marriage on their head; showing the lies of society's rules and customs, and how the world is anything but an orderly and sensible place; demonstrating the corruption and hypocrisy of societies institutions; ripping apart common stereotypes.

Or, to put things more concretely, in the words of novelist Pat Conroy: "My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, 'All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.'"

Those who need a pat and neatly-tied-up ending shouldn't read Tartt's book, or if they do will be disappointed. I couldn't put it down, mainly because I kept wanting to see where Tartt was going with this. I found myself getting lost in this thing and staying up late three nights in a row reading, which these days is very unusual for me. All I can say is, Tartt's writing cast a weird spell over me.

Harriet Cleve Dusfrsnes--12 years old, fierce, bossy, and unsupervised by those who ought to care about what troubles her. One of her great aunts says to her that it's "awful" being a child--"at the mercy of other people."

Tartt's third book, The Goldfinch is one of my favorite novels. This one isn't, but it certainly is memorable. Probably the highest praise I can give the book is that it makes me want to re-read my Flannery O'Connor.

[gary10_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

My least favorite of Tartt's three novels but still really liked it. I had expected it to be more of a detective story than a description of southern culture. But still, beautifully written. It has a couple of scenes that are among the most frightening I have ever read.

[stevesmits · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The Dufresnes family lived in a small town in Mississippi. The extended family was largely female-centered: Charlotte, her mother Edie and aunts Lilly, Adelaide, and Tabby. Charlotte’s children are Robin, about 9, Allison, 4, and Harriet, a toddler. Charlotte’s husband Dix is not much of a presence in the household. Ida Rhew is a black maid who is at the house daily. Ida is much-loved by the family, especially the young girls.

Shockingly, Robin is found one day hanged to death from a tree in the back yard. The police are unable to determine how this happened; suicide and accident are ruled out, but no suspects are found. The boy’s death drives his mother to a state of stuporous lethargy from which she never fully recovers. Dix leaves the house to take a job in Nashville and while the couple never divorce he has set up another life for himself in that distant city. He is in and out of the family from then on. The family seems to have dealt with this tragedy by largely pushing it out of their consciousness -- all but, as the story unfolds, Harriet.

Some years pass and we see how the girls have aged. Allison in her teenage years becomes dreamy and overly emotional. Harriet, by contrast, is bold and frank, often abrasive. She is closer to her grandmother Edie than her mother, although their similar personalities often clash. Her aunts also are a big part of her life. She and Allison are close to Ida Rhew than to their mother, but the family’s treatment of Ida, who has held the household together, is superior and demeaning.

As Harriet gets to her pre-teen years she becomes obsessed with finding out who killed Robin. She queries her grandmother and aunts, but they do not wish to discuss it. Harriet is aware of rougher, lower class children and families around town and the countryside. She convinces herself that a classmate of Robin’s – Danny Ratliff – must have been Robin’s killer. Danny had been seen around the neighborhood and yard, playing with Robin. Harriet, with no evidence to support it, believes that Danny must have been Robin’s killer. Harriet and her school mate friend Hely (he’s closer to her than she is to him) begin to track Danny and encounters his rough and crude family, particularly the vicious Farish and the nutty Eugene. A family long associated with petty crime, Farish oversees the family’s methamphetamine cooking and Eugene is a whacky born-again minister of sorts. Both are decidedly unstable. Eugene has taken in Loyal, an out-of-town holy-roller pastor who has brought a covey of snakes to Eugene’s apartment to use in his preaching. Loyal is really in town to pick up Farish’s drugs to transport them back to Tennessee. Harriet and Hely break into Eugene’s apartment and take off with one of the snakes, a mean Cobra. They decide they are going to drop the snake from a highway overpass onto Farish’s car driven by Danny, but Danny’s grandmother is actually driving the car and she is bitten. Farish figures out that it was Harriet and Hely who were behind this.

Farish, usually strung out on meth, is becoming more hostile and paranoid and Danny thinks Farish is determined to kill him. On a drive to pick up some drugs they’ve stashed in an abandoned water tower, Danny shoots Farish. This is witnessed by Harriet who’s hidden herself in the water tower, preparing to kill Danny with a gun she’s taken from her house. Danny spots Harriet and pursues her in the tower, but falls into the tank and Harriet believes that he has drowned. Harriet falls from the tower escaping Danny and ends up in the hospital. Farish hadn’t died from the gun shot and was hospitalized where he subsequently dies. Eugene goes to the hospital and determines that Harriet was behind everything. He stalks her there with the intent to kill her, but he fails. Danny, it turns out, did not drown. Harriet realizes that it was not at all certain that Danny killed her brother. The question of what actually happened to Robin is never answered.

The novel focuses on obsession for vengeance from the point of view of a coming-of-age young girl. No one in her family, who otherwise seemed enrapt by their family’s history, seemed willing to get to the root of what happened to Robin. On the weakest of evidence Harriet takes up the mystery by concluding that only Danny could have done it.

The work is in large part in the Southern gothic style ala Flannery O’Connor. It is a coming of age story with vivid and interesting characters in Harriet and her family and the Ratliff’s. As much as a story of Harriet’s ill-conceived determination to get justice for her brother, this is a tale of two families. Harriet’s family is entirely centered on the females of several generation whose status has declined since the death many years past of Harriet’s great grandfather, a Southern patrician whose social standing and wealth declined significantly in his last years. Danny’s is a rough and criminal family who stand in sharp contrast from the more gentile Dufrene’s; their crudeness is almost comical. The juxtaposition of the two families forms a fascinating element of the novel. The novel, like others of Tartt’s work is a bit overlong, but the fascinating characters hold one’s attention.

[voracious_1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Harriet was just a precocious baby when her older brother, Robin, was found hanged on a tree while the family was preparing for Mother's Day lunch. His death was never explained and the family never fully recovered from the tragic event. Years later, Harriet is out to finally figure out what happened and she wants revenge. With her mischief-seeking friend, Hely, in tow, Harriet begins stalking a local family known throughout the town for their antisocial behavior and constant tangles with the law. As Harriet and Hely attempt to avoid getting sent to bible camp and/or shooed away by Harriet's meddling elderly relatives, they also attempt to escape the wrath of the vengeful family of criminals.

This book took me over three weeks to read and I'm not sure it was worth the effort. The storyline is slow and not very interesting. While the pace picks up in the last 15% of the book, Robin's killer is never revealed, and even the title is never explained. In the beginning, I thought it had potential. I envisioned Harriet like a 1970's American version of Flavia de Luce (Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie). I was particularly disinterested in the actions of the criminal family, which got equal focus in the book. In all, I would not recommend this story. Definitely not as good as Donna Tartt's other two books: The Goldfinch and The Secret History.

[darushawehm-1 · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

Some people love this kind of writing, calling it rich or lush. I, on the other hand, think this book could have been greatly improved by the removal of about 2/3 of the words. The story wasn't compelling enough to justify the 555 pages it took to tell it. Very disappointing.

[lukerik-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

It's so beautifully written in vast multi-claused Victorian style sentences--but with a modern balance (no verb hunting).

It's a much more mature novel than The Secret History, with a healthy obsession with death; really, keep an eye out for death and he's everywhere, even apparently appearing physically and making his victims flap at him.

It's set in this odd male-less world, where the men have either died or left, except for the Hulls, who are trying to get in; and even they are associated with death: Hely is present at the cat's funeral and Pemberton is a lifeguard.

There's also a lot of commentary on social class. The Cleves' treatment of Odean is a particular shocker, and indeed, Harriet's choice of Robin's little friend as the murderer. She later doesn't remember why she picked him, so it's worth noting it as you read.

I could bang on for ages about all the clever correspondences between the Cleves and the Ratliffs, and the funny scenes scattered through the novel but I shall bow out and let you read the actual book.

[jpporter · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I wish Donna Tartt would write faster. She is possibly one of the best writers in the English language; her prose is a treat to read, her characters seem like real people, her stories are not cut-and-paste, formulaic, novels. Her books are substantial - she takes the time, and commits the effort, to tell a story in its whole.

The Little Friend is the story of Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, a twelve-year-old whose brother, Robin, was found hanging from a tree in the backyard of the family's home when Harriet was just a baby. It was never determined what had happened to Robin, and Harriet sets it in her mind to resolve the mystery. Set in Alexandria, Mississippi, the story is rich with a sense of place (Tartt is from Mississippi).

Populating the story are Harriet's mother, Charlotte, who has not been able to come to grips with the death of Robin; Allison, Harriet's sister, who seems detached and sullen; Edith, Harriet's grandmother (and Charlotte's mother), a strong-willed woman who seems to command the family; Adelaide, Libby and Tat, Edith's sisters; and Hely, an eleven-year-old boy who idolizes Harriet.

Filling out the cast of characters are Ida Rhew, long-time maid in the Dufresnes household; the Ratliff brothers - Farish, Danny and Eugene - Mississippi white trash all of whom have spent time in jail (and, in Farish's case, a mental hospital); and - in absentia, for the most part - Dixon Dufresnes, Harriet's father, who, frustrated with Charlotte's inability to recover from Robin's death, found work in Nashville, Tennessee, visiting his family usually on holidays.

From these characters Tartt weaves an incredible narrative about coming of age, learning to accept responsibility for oneself, and recognizing that one's acts have impact on others.

The only real fault I can find in the book is that there are points where it seems longer than it needs to have been - a flaw that is easy to forgive when the result is just more of Tartt's beautiful writing.

[bodachliath · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Donna Tartt is a terrific storyteller, and this is as compelling as her other novels, an exploration of the culture, history and politics of the American south telling the story of a child growing up in a family haunted by the murder of her brother.

[edward.lorn · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

THE LITTLE FRIEND Review Donna Tartt's sophomore effort has probably the worst cover and title out of all the books I've ever read. I read the entire novel (of course, or else we wouldn't be here) and I have no idea why the book is entitled THE LITTLE FRIEND. As to the doll on the cover... there are four paragraphs about 400 pages in that speak about a doll the main character's grandmother tries to remember for no other reason than not recalling the name is annoying her. She's just been in a terrible accident, but she won't be able to rest until she figures out what the name of this doll was... That's it. As to the title... Our main character, Harriet, has a friend, but he's not the focus of the book. The entire book is about Harriet attempting to solve the murder of her brother, Robin, who died when she was three... so, once again, he's not the little friend. Who the fuck is the titular little friend? Inquiring minds want to know. If there's some subtext I missed, it should have been clearer. Seriously, everything else in this book is harped on with excessive verbosity, why not the reasoning behind the title? Tartt's first book is about a group of friends dealing with a sordid past, so THE SECRET HISTORY makes sense as a title. THE GOLDFINCH is about a young man who steals a painting of a goldfinch after a bombing, so there's no mystery there. Why am I left wondering, after 555 goddamn pages, whom this motherfucking little friend is? Balls to you, Donna Tartt, you pretentious Pulitzer Prize winning billybumbler!

*wants to believe this is jealousy talking, but sees that most reviewers on Amazon and Goodreads agree with him, so he returns to the review*

I have a better title for this slumberfest: HOW NOT TO WRITE ENGAGING, ENTERTAINING FICTION. Repeatedly slamming my cock and bean bag in a desk drawer while simultaneously shoving flaming toothpicks up my nose would be more entertaining than this book. I was bored stupid. With its sleep-inducing walls of text and adverb-laden meanderings, this book is better than NyQuil. Tartt has a horrible habit of starting a sentence with an adverb then going on to describe why she used the adverb. "Nervously, she fidgeted with her skirt." Given the context of the paragraph, we know the little girl is nervous, so the adverb becomes useless, nothing but word filler to increase word count. Donna Tart says it takes her seven years to write a book because writing any quicker is not fun for her. I say she's a liar. I believe it takes her seven years because she's waiting around for Merriam Webster to invent new adverbs for her to overuse. Now, you would think that with her excessive adverb usage, Ms. Tartt would be able to describe the sun as something other than "high and hot", but no, oh no, she can't. Five times in this novel (count 'em, pumpkin, 1... 2... 3... 4... MOTHER-GODDAMN-FUCKING 5!) she uses that same descriptor. Not to mention, it rains every night.

*gouges eyeballs out with rusty spoon and proceeds to skullfuck himself*

As an author, I'd give this book three stars, because it is a well-written dissertation on what not to do. As a reader, I'd give it a one, because I've read Klu Klux Klan brochures that were less offensive. So I ended up at two stars, because I can math good. Why's it offensive? Let's see here... The N-word is used ad nasuem by not only the antagonists, but the protags as well. In narrative, in dialogue, in inner thought, all over the place. There is no sense of time frame here, so we do not have a social climate by which to judge the necessity for the overuse of such an ugly word. People speak on cell phones, so its relatively modern. Eight tracks are mentioned, so it could be the eighties. Debutantes have black house servants whom they pay twenty dollars (a week? biweekly? a month? don't know because it's never expanded on or explained) for their services, so it might be the fifties... Whatever year it is, the message is clear. "Niggers" live in "Niggertowns" and do "Nigger duties". Each one of those phrases were used in this book more than once, and as many as a dozen times each. Every black stereotype was used, from the slick pimp-ish drug dealer (whose name, I shit you not, is Catfish) to the Mammy-esque nanny whom our main character loves as if the woman is a pet. In fact, when the "nanny" (and I use "nanny" lightly) quits/gets fired, Harriet only misses her because the house becomes filthy and borderline unlivable.

*calls the NAACP and requests that they stage their first book burning*

I could go on and on about how utterly atrocious this novel is. I could drone on forever about how Tartt ruins every tense moment with unneeded flashbacks. I could bash you over the head with how ridiculous and anticlimactic the ending is, but I won't. Instead, I'll beg you to never read this book. Unless of course you're a member of the Aryan Brotherhood who's having trouble sleeping. Seriously, really, honestly, truthfully, nervously, I adamantly plead with you persuasively, truly, run screamingly from this horribly written book. And one more "ly", because fuck you, that's why.

*passes out from exhaustion*

[brokenangelkisses · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Don’t judge this book by its seriously creepy cover. (Seriously. Creepy.)

If you did, you might miss out on a treat.
What’s it about?

13 year old Harriet is trying hard to grow up. Her reluctant entrance into adolescence is made worse by her parents’ reactions to her long-dead brother: her father has moved away, her mother has drifted away, her sister just sleeps. At the height of another dull summer, Harriet decides to get revenge on the person responsible for her family’s disintegration: her brother’s killer. But who is he? Harriet resolves to find out and punish him.
What’s it like?

It’s not the work of crime fiction you might anticipate from the premise. It takes Harriet 100 pages – slightly less than a fifth of the entire book – to decide to investigate her brother’s murder, and even then “investigate” does not turn out to be the most appropriate verb for Harriet’s inept questioning of her elders or swift reaching of conclusions.

“Twelve years after Robin’s death, no one knew any more about how he had ended up hanged from a tree in his own yard than they had on the day it happened.”

Instead, Tartt has written a slice of life set in the American Deep South, where days are slow and folk are poor and no-one wants to think about poor Robin’s death. Having grown up in the South, presumably Tartt’s writing is accurate when it evokes a whole world in telling detail. She takes a whole paragraph to describe the tenor of a bird’s cry and describes a sign in detail. The novel is full of parentheses and dashes, throwaway details that bring Harriet’s world vividly to life. In some novels this would be the dross that a thorough editor would remove; in ‘The Little Friend’ these details are what make the novel such a pleasure to meander though.

Tartt’s use of language is excellent. She makes regular use of collective nouns – Harriet burrows in a “drift of bedclothes” – which create a thorough sense of time, place and action. You can read for the simple pleasure of the words and the pictures they conjure up rather than being hooked by a plot.

Harriet herself is utterly convincing. She regularly does things with no idea why, before or after. She reaches decisions with absolute conviction after the briefest deliberation and will not be deterred. Her slightly younger friend, Hely, loves her in a similarly childish and determined way which Tartt captures perfectly when Hely reflects on his dream that “Then they would be married forever”. Other characters are equally believable and just as thoroughly drawn; there are no clichés or sketches here.

“Harriet stiffened, less at the burn (glossy red, with the fibrous, bloody sheen of raw membrane) than at his hands on her shoulders.”

This is a Bildungsroman with echoes of ‘Harriet the spy’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. It’s a depiction of a family in crisis, but a quiet kind of crisis, the kind reached years after the devastating event. Readers may yearn to shake Harriet’s mother, Charlotte, to point her attention towards her two living children, but as suits a book of this ilk, Tartt doesn’t leave the reader in a hopeful place.

In fact, the ending is very abrupt, and I would have preferred greater closure, or even just an ending that focused more on the central character. Despite this it (mostly) works. In real life, there aren’t simple answers or clear stopping points. If you prefer your fiction not to emulate real-life too closely then this may not be for you.

A more serious flaw, IMO, is the deeply unrealistic final fate of one of the more dangerous characters, Danny. In a less realistic novel it would be easy to skip over a less than convincing development, but in this novel, with its carefully realised characters and detailed character histories, the daftness of it sort of smacks you round the face and adds a bitter taste to a sad tale.
Who is Donna Tartt?

Tartt is renowned for her first novel ‘The Secret History’, which I’ve never read. It took her ten years to publish this, her second book, but she is adamant that this wasn’t due to writer’s block or similar. She simply wanted the opportunity to research the book thoroughly and write it carefully, especially as she was deliberately taking on a very different approach by writing a “symphonic [novel], like War and Peace”. This seems just as effective an approach as churning out a book a year in terms of sales as it gives her a bit of mystique in an industry that seems to think you’re out of date if your new hardback isn’t ready prior to the release of your last paperback.
Conclusions

This is a good read if you enjoy a leisurely pace, lots of description and the opportunity to ponder the meaning of various symbols. If you want to know what actually happened to Robin, you may find yourself frustrated.

I enjoyed reading ‘The Little Friend’ and have added a large tick next to ‘The Secret History’ in my mental TBR list, but without the incentive of a book group meeting to motivate me I’m not sure when I’ll feel I have the time to tackle it.

[bookaholixanon · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Sometimes, I do believe, one's expectations can completely ruin a book for a person. On the other hand, expectations can only infrequently enhance one's experience of a book. It took me three attempts, years apart, to get through The Little Friend ... but it was worth it! A wonderful book, and a unique heroine, young Harriet. Just read patiently and you will be richly rewarded. At first I wanted to give this book 4½ stars ... actually more like 4.4 because I'd "rounded down" to 4 ... but then something interesting happened ... I felt like I wanted to reread the book even though it hadn't been very long since I'd (yes, finally!) finished it. I wanted to re-immerse myself in the amazingly rich, strange, dark, frightening, alternatively heartbreaking and hilarious world of Harriet and her quest to find out who killed her brother Robin.

So ... unlike many readers here, I came to The Little Friend with zero expectations ... and, as advertised, once I was properly "immersed", I loved it. Did the author do my bidding for me and tell me everything I might have wanted to know by the story's end? No, but I don't ultimately believe that it makes sense to scold or berate an author for not writing a different book than the one she actually did write. To fully appreciate any book, but especially a book like this, we need – I certainly needed – to "surrender" to, to accept, the author's offering, on her own terms. Having done that, and on rereading it, I have to revise: 5 stars.

[markus.bauer · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Ein Kaleidoskop von Themen: Entwicklungs- und Familienroman, Südstaatenepos, Thriller, White Trash, Drogenkultur, religiöser Wahn und Schlangenkult, gewaltig und ausschweifend mit einer Hauptfigur, Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, welche sich ins Gedächtnis eingräbt, mythisch überhöht, einzigartig. Es ist eine von starken Frauen geprägte Welt, diese Frauen stemmen sich gegen den unausweichlichen Zerfall und Untergang, die alte Südstaaten Welt mit ihrer Ordnung und Kultur zerbricht, das Familienhaus ist abgebrannt, die Familie zersplittert, die meisten Nachkommen haben keine Kraft mehr und ziehen sich in ihre Depression zurück und die Männer können gut verdrängen und voll Optimismus an die Zukunft glauben. An den Rändern der Gesellschaft leben die Ratliffs in Trailern, zusammengehalten von der uralten Grossmutter im Kampf um einen Platz, um Geld, Macht und Anerkennung, Wahn, Paranoia und Hass sind die Energien, welche diese Welt vorantreibt und damit auch unausweichlich in den eigenen Untergang. Schwarze Frauen halten die alte Ordnung noch aufrecht, bis auch sie sich zurückziehen und alles zerfällt und auseinanderbricht. Und mittendrin steht Harriet und versucht mit all ihrer Kraft sich gegen diesen Untergang zu wehren. Alle sind schuldig, es gibt keine eindeutigen Schuldzuweisungen, die Welt verändert sich unausweichlich. Das Buch ist komplex, vielschichtig und sehr spannend.

[missjomarch · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

I was beginning to think I'd never see the end of this book. This is the third book I've read by Donna Tartt and I'm sad to say it's my least favorite. Definitely not up to par with The Secret History and The Goldfinch both of which I thought were excellent.

This story takes place in Mississippi in the 70's a decade after Harriet's older brother Robin was found hanged in their yard. His death remains an unexplained mystery for the family as well as the small town where they live. Although only twelve years old Harriet realizes the impact her brother's death has had on her family. Raised predominantly by her grandmother, Harriet and her sister know their mother has not been well since that eventful day. Their father no longer lives at home but lives near his work in Nashville and only shows up on the rare occasion.

Frustrated and consumed by unanswered questions, Harriet sets out to find her brother's killer and punish him. Enlisting her friend Hely they pursue the man she thinks killed her brother and in doing so risk their own lives repeatedly.

I enjoyed the sections about Harriet and her family but not so much the parallel story of "the killer" and his family. I grew weary of the ceaseless chronicles of their unfortunate lives. It felt like it was just a lot of the same repeating itself and thus the pages never seem to end.

[sarahstenhouse · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A great read. Likeable and complex characters and an involving story.

[daftboy1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

This is an orginal story but it took m nearly 3 weeks to read.
The main character is Harriet who is 12 years old very clever and wants to discover who killed her older brother when she was a baby.
She has a vivid imagination and thinks she knows who killed him.

She and her little friend Hely try to unravel this mystery.

Harriet is surrounded by women her Mum,sister her Granny Edie and all her auntys.
There is a dodgy scummy family called the Ratliff, Harriet and Hely spy on them, one day they throw a snake at the Ratliffs car but instead of targeting one of the dodgy sons the snake bites the old granny. Harriet runs off to camp, comes back gets in a big scrape with one of the sons.
She needs to go to hospital.

I did enjoy this book but it annoyed tha you never find out who killed Robin, Harriets brother.

[y2ash · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

Donna Tartt is three for three. Let the judging begin!

Tartt is a wonderful writer. Her prose is absolutely beautiful. With that being said, she needs an editor badly; someone to reel her in when she begins to wax poetically into a never-ending stream of consciousness. The reason why Tartt gets away with ridiculously long narratives because of how well written it actually is and, in another 10 years when her next novel comes out, the masses will clamour on how it is the greatest thing since the pre sliced bagel.

The Little Friend, just like The Secret History and The Goldfinch, started out strongly usually with a death. Nine year old Robin is found hanged on a Mother's Day afternoon. The event deeply affects the Cleve Dufrenes family for many year culminating in Robin's youngest sister, Harriet, investigating and zeroing in on the Meth making and dealing Ratcliff family. Specifically on Danny Ratcliff since he was the same age as Robin and apparently did mean things to Robin.

Now, for people expecting this to be a mystery will be sorely disappointed. SPOILER ALERT: Robin's killer is never revealed. That I could easily get over. The crux of the story was how Robin's senseless death continues to keep his family stagnant, as it did with his mother Charlotte and sister Allison, or change them fundamentally as it did with his grandmother Edie.

The Little Friend is a Southern Gothic family drama and if Tartt had stood with the Cleve Dufrenes clan, I might have been a tad kinder with this review. However, she felt the need to give the Ratcliff family equal share and the introduction to the world's most boring drug dealing family happened.

Reading this novel was like having a fever induced dream. There were moments of luidity like just how much the family changed, Harriet's obsession with Danny, Harriet's isolation in camp, Libby's death but the everything else bored or confused me greatly. Can anyone tell me when this book takes place? I swear I couldn't pin it down. I hated the Ratcliffs, the Odoms, and Hely! God Hely was so annoying! I was hoping he would upset a behive, get stunned, and die My Girl style but no.

The Little Friend was about 610 pages. I believe that I deserved a better ending than the one I got. What the hell was that? I can say confidently that I am never reading another Tartt novel. No more.

[janna_voss · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Donna Tartt writes beautifully. Truly she is a master, a wordsmith. With each paragraph in this book, I grew more impressed with her nearly overwhelming talent.

This story is set in the deep South. It captures so well some of the elements I'd rather forget and other things that made me smile. (Oddly, I was surprised at the detail in her descriptions of southern trees and plants. My memories of the South, which I moved away from as soon as I could, are lacking in this regard.)

The main character, young Harriet, I found easy to relate to. She's smart and not a push-over. Definitely not the Southern Belle, "speak when spoken to" type. She never says what she's expected to and often disagrees with adults when she thinks they are wrong, which they often are. She's also painfully alone, isolated beyond description. I felt so sorry for her, and yet, identified with her completely.

I read "The Secret History" about a month ago. This book is in some ways completely different and in other ways quite similar. In "The Secret History" I pretty much hated every character, which was not the case with "The Little Friend." That said, the ending of "Secret History" was better. "The Little Friend's" ending, to me, was somewhat unsatisfying.

Still, she's a wonderful writer and I cannot wait to read "The Goldfinch" to see where Ms Tartt takes us next... I hope she doesn't wait another 10 years before publishing her next book!

[luna.falena · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Now that I have completed all three of Tartt's books, it's going to be difficult waiting another ten years for her to publish another one.

"The Little Friend" was very enjoyable to me. Having lived in Mississippi for quite a while myself, I could literally FEEL and completely understand every bit of the atmosphere that Tartt was expressing and she does it to a frightening perfection. The people, the weather, the way of life, the sounds... they all radiate right out of the pages.

I adored Harriet. I could relate to Harriet; her curious, serious nature despite being so young. The childhood nostalgia of this book was welcoming as well, even in the most frightening moments when the evil adult world clashes with the innocence of youth. Tartt did a remarkable job portraying the feel of the transition from innocent childhood into awkward adolescence-- not realizing it's happening until it's too late and you're looking back at a sealed door.

There's mystery, sadness, wonder and terror laced through-out the entire novel. I could feel it in my bones.

[tercat-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This is one of my favorite books ever. I fell in love with Harriet--and Donna Tartt--almost immediately. (I read this one before reading The Secret History.)