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The Little Friend
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 24 hrs and 22 mins
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The Little Friend
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Summary
The second novel by Donna Tartt, best-selling author of The Goldfinch (winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize), The Little Friend is a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil.
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.
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Editor reviews
Critic reviews
"Beautifully written and immaculately crafted ... even though there's humour, the tension is palpable. Unputdownable” ( Daily Mirror)
"Harriet is one of the most engaging and rounded characters you are likely to find ... gorgeous, fluent, visual." ( The Times)
What listeners say about The Little Friend
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Stylo
- 18-01-16
Beautiful writing, but boring story
Is there anything you would change about this book?
The plot!
If you’ve listened to books by Donna Tartt before, how does this one compare?
Her book the GoldFinch is much better.
If this book were a film would you go see it?
No, it is the wonderful writing that kept me listening not the story at all!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A. Banner
- 28-10-15
Not what I was expecting
Great story very engaging found myself looking for to each journey in the car for the next instalment.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- RH
- 21-05-17
A friend indeed...
Beautifully written, hypnotic and lyrical and a superb narrator. I am a bit frustrated at the ending but this would not stop me recommending this audio book overall.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Cogito Ergo Sometimes
- 11-11-22
Wonderful
Beautifully written and read. I read it when it came out and I've relay enjoyed listening this week. It is brilliant.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- DR Burden
- 01-06-24
Disappointing
A second novel, like a second album or second anything, is hard. The Secret History is, rightly, well regarded as one of the finest debut novels of all time.
But The Little Friend, barely spoken about at all really, is an over long and overblown story, that aims to be about childhood and long summers, all entwined in a murder mystery, and is ultimately a bore
Nothing wrong with the voice performance here, or the actual quality of the writing, there's simply not enough plot to sustain the story, and it doesn't help that every single character is uniquely unpleasant in their own way, making it hard to support or care for any of them.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- harriet
- 22-10-16
Great story
Enjoyed the book but really some sections felt rambling and long but the core story was neglected
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- A reader
- 06-05-21
Phenomenal narration
Great book but the narrator makes it an even more amazing listen - really sensitively and thoughtfully read.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Janey
- 23-06-18
Beautifully written and narrated
I’d almost given up on audiobooks thinking they are not for me. Then I discovered this gem. The narrator’s voice is so important to the enjoyment and this narrator has such a relaxing tone and lovely accent that it actually lulled me off to sleep a few times!
This is my first Donna Tartt novel and I have fallen in love. She writes beautifully and the characters are well written and quirky. The story describes a summer in the life of headstrong, determined young girl. A lot of this novel is about grief and loss - not only the loss of loved ones but also the loss of certainties which we all go through as we grow up. That said, this is not a sad story. It’s an adventure that immerses the reader in another place and time. I loved it and have recently started another Donna Tartt novel “The Goldfinch” which is shaping up to be even better than “The Little Friend” I think.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Aisling
- 11-10-18
I never wanted it to end.
Donna Tartt never disappoints. Although this is probably my least favourite of her books, it's still really engaging. It's a bit slow to start and I was left a bit frustrated when threads of the story seemed to go nowhere. I wonder had/ has she intended writing a sequel. That said, she is a master story teller. She builds up an atmosphere and creates wonderfully 3 dimensional, credible characters. As with all her books, I didn't want it to end and I'm left missing the characters now that it's finished.
I have given it 5 stars because it is so much better than other books which get 4 stars. I just wish there were more points on the scale!
The narration was excellent.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Borbála
- 27-04-22
Not a crime drama but an absolute beauty
I started listening, thinking it was a crime drama. I did read the reviews and knew that I wouldn't get answers but it turned out that it's even less of a crime drama than I thought because it's not even about any realistic attempts to find out who might have done the murder.
It is a beautiful story about a teenage girl whose little brother had been murdered. The loss of her brother is a huge part of her story but only in terms of how it affects her and her family. As she is a child, her quest to find and avenge the killer is not at all realistic. So really it's just about her and her family and friends and a bunch of other people she knows.
The characters as well as the whole setting are amazingly real, the narration is excellent and the style is absolutely beautiful.
I highly recommend this audiobook.
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