As a museum professional, I felt like this book should have come with some sort of warning: Book opens with museum calamity that destroys art and kills people. Gotta say--it was hard to get into the story at first as I kept thinking "What if this really happened? How on earth do you deal with such a thing?" But that's the museum professional in me.

The reader in me loved being wrapped up in Tartt's beautiful language. I was frequently annoyed with with Theo, but I think that's the point. And it's so very, very long (reading it during my three week check-out period felt like a real push, especially since this is a busty time) The last 30 pages or so bumped this from 3.5 stars to a solid 4. But that's probably the museum professional in me.