The Little Friend

By: Donna Tartt

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 25 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. • “Destined to become a special kind of classic.” —The New York Times Book Review

The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and “a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens” (The New York Times Book Review), The Little Friend is a work of myriad enchantments by a writer of prodigious talent.

©2002 Donna Tartt (P)2002 Books On Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

2003, Orange Prize for Fiction, Nominated

"This extraordinary book [has] a main character, a twelve-year-old girl named Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, who ranks up there with Huck Finn, Miss Havisham, Quentin Compson, and Philip Marlowe, fictional characters who don't seem in the least fictional.... To Kill a Mockingbird If is the childhood that everyone wanted and no one really had, The Little Friend is childhood as it is, by turns enchanting and terrifying." (Malcolm Jones, Newsweek)

"Breathtaking... A sublime tale rich in religious overtones, moral ambiguities, and violent, poetic acts... From its darkly enticing opening, we are held spellbound." (Lisa Shea, Elle)

"Languidly atmospheric...psychologically acute...A rich novel that takes you somewhere worth going." (The New Yorker)

"It is an exceptionally suspenseful, flawlessly written story." (Booklist)

More great characters and story from Donna Tartt

I downloaded this one following my read of THE GOLDFINCH, which I found to be beautiful and compelling.

Tartt has a great gift for characters, and the people she created for this book really did seem to come to life.

I very much enjoyed this book and am about to download her third one next.

Terrible ending!

I kept hoping this would all come out in the end and was very unhappy with the sudden and horrible ending.
The Gold Finch was good and wrapped up every detail. Not so this one!

Little Friend, Big Book!

What did you love best about The Little Friend?

Donna Tartt's visuals are really good.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

I enjoy the ending, but felt it need more closer.

What about Karen White’s performance did you like?

Karnen White did a really good job. No complains on my end.

If you could take any character from The Little Friend out to dinner, who would it be and why?

I wouldn't want to take any of them out to dinner.

Any additional comments?

This was a great book buried in with a lot of filler. There’s no way this book should have been over 600 pages. The book has some really good parts, but for the most part it is just boring filler that has nothing to do with the story at all. The adults in the book have conversations that are so pointless, boarding, and at times very racist. It is obnoxious how stupid little things like people eating or watching television are described in great detail. It goes on and on talking about the plots of popular 70s soap operas and cartoons that it is distracting from the plot of the story of the book itself. The thing I found the most annoying about ‘The Little Friend' is the book’s endless references to children’s literature. During the exciting parts of the story, it spins off and starts comparing what is going on to some part of The Jungle Book, James Bond, Winnie the Pooh, Schlock Homes, Scooby-Doo, Lawrence of Arabia… and so on and so forth. The parts where the boy develops an obsession with horror themed comic books is amusing, but apart from that, if they edited out all the parts describing what people were reading and all the comparisons to this what was happening to classic books and pop culture, then this would’ve been a far more enjoyable book. I’m interested in checking out Donna Tartt’s abridged recording.

Better to read than listen

The narrator's vocal cadence is so distracting, that it ruins the story for me. I read the book (Kindle version) a couple of years ago, and loved it. Donna Tartt is a very talented writer. The Audible version of Tartt's "The Goldfinch" is excellent.

Enjoyable but...

What did you love best about The Little Friend?

I liked the story and pacing and I really loved he characters. Harriet made me laugh out loud several times.

Any additional comments?

The ending was really disappointing. It felt incomplete and poorly planned.

A well-written but frustrating mess

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This just isn't a good story. The plot has many possibilities, well written, but it's a meandering, frustrating, unfulfilled, unfulfilling story. Some scenes and dialogs are interminable, suggesting that the author thinks these characters are fascinating and don't need to do anything to hold the reader's interest. Yes, the characters are good, but no, they're not fascinating, and hearing endless details of their lives, when these details add nothing to the story, is frustrating. Unnecessarily lengthy scenes are characteristic of Tartt's work (I've read all her books) but in this one they're particularly annoying.

What could Donna Tartt have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Resolve SOMETHING. It begins with a fascinating murder story and ends with . . . ??? That's how I felt when I realized it was over: Huh? That's it? Are you kidding? It didn't really end so much as just stop.

What about Karen White’s performance did you like?

Excellent, which is why I gave the overall rating I did. She does the characters' voices really well.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

I'd watch it on HBO if it had a good cast and editing.

Any additional comments?

I hear a lot of people complaining lately that they don't care to see "all the details cleaned up" in a mystery story. I see the point, but I think this book is an example of taking that idea too far. I feel like Okay, no need to tie up everything with a bow on it, etc., but jeesh--give us something, please? Who killed the kid? why? If there's no answer to this central question then why should I read this book?

exquisite

one of the best books or audiobooks ever and the performance is the absolute best I've ever heard

awful narrator

So upset that I spent $14 on this just to stop after hour 1 because of the awful narration. The over exaggerated southern accent and barking voice, I just couldn’t handle it. So disappointed

The Little Friend's Friend

I stumbled across this book at the store and it caught my interest at once. When I got home I looked it up on audible...low and behold! After listening to this book and reading other people's reviews I feel compelled to share my own thoughts...I really enjoyed this book and was sad when it was over. I enjoyed Karen White's narration as well, though when I first sampled the book I wasn't sure what to think...Her voice grows on you and did for me rather quickly...she sets the tone of this story perfectly. I'm giving a four star review because Donna Tartt does tend to drag some of the more minor details out for way too long...I found my mind wandering more then once, but all in all, this is rich and grand story telling...Some people have complained that the novel ends with too much left in the air, but I don't think so, I felt the story ended where it should for what the story was about.

Fantastic Book

I absolutely love this book. The characters are eccentric and the story is electric! This book is combines mystery, suspense, and comedy. I can still visualize some of the scenes and chuckle.