[hwestiii]

I think it is the favorite book of a lot of people who don't read a lot. It's a transparent soap opera that flirts with incest and skullduggery and a lot of dreck. I don't intentionally not finish many books, but that's in the list.

[ubermonkey]

I literally laughed out loud.

There is a sort of person who, when they find they dislike a work nearly universally lauded by professional readers, writers, and editors, wonder what they missed.

There is another sort of person who, in the same situation, becomes certain that the praises are in error, that those who sing them must be nitwits, and that they are in possession of the objectively true evaluation of the work.

USUALLY I see this trotted out by people who bounce off, say, Faulkner or Joyce, so you're at least interesting for doing it about Tartt. But you're no more correct or insightful for your novel target.

[hwestiii]

By some measure Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is the greatest American novel of the 20th century.