The Goldfinch

How do you find meaning? If you can create meaning, subjectively imbue an object or a person with it, can the ideas of objective value, genuine article, coincidence, stand up against elaborate, satisfying, even mythic, illusions, the idea of a fated course? 
Especially when experience would otherwise lend a pessimistic, nigh nihilistic reading of life without actively seeking out the idea of ‘something more', a purpose, a reason, a relationship, a stimulant. 
Beautiful writing can make drawn out moments a lovely place to dwell, but a string of shitty circumstances, even described poetically can render the writing's tendency to dwell a difficult read. Thus, it's exceptionally frustrating to realize in retrospect that the amount of suffering, both hazily and sharply-related by the main character, works to make the ending, if not tidy, then cathartic, impactful. 
It's hard to rail against the protagonist's dimmer view of life, both given his experiences, and because it is tempered by a love of beauty, an inexhaustible appetite for tiny moments of joy to be found too few and far between.
It's hard to rail against the protagonist's choices, as the reader is so intimately familiar with his thoughts, the mixture of a desperate scramble for survival, comfort, contentment, connection, acceptance and the coldly spoiling sporadic luxury and privilege. 
Theo is still working things out when we leave him, and I think that state is true to the book's tone.
Not a favourite, but I fully recognize that's because I'm impatient and a sucker for happier reads. 
Felt weird seeing so many thugs described first by their nationalities/ethnicities and then their brutish/unattractive physical qualities, I guess technically each was an individual and there was a diverse array, but it feels like a slippery slope to racial stereotypes given the order of presentation. 
⚠️Drug addiction, alcohol abuse, PTSD, mental health concerns, homophobia, childhood assault/bullying