If you want a neat, tidy plot with likable characters making smart choices: skip it. If you want a book that will wreck you, haunt you, and make you see beauty in broken things:

Here’s a helpful blog post draft for The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Little, Brown). The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: A Masterclass in Beauty, Grief, and Bad Decisions

The Goldfinch is messy, beautiful, too long, and absolutely essential. It’s a book about a stolen painting that becomes a meditation on what we steal from ourselves—and what we keep.

Here’s what you need to know before diving in (and why it’s worth every page).