Theo of Golden by Allen Levi: A Book Review

Theo of Golden is one of the biggest word-of-mouth success stories in recent publishing. I wanted to love it. I didn’t finish it.

About the Author

Allen Levi is an American author. He drafted Theo of Golden longhand over about three years, often in a writing shed without internet access. The idea came to him around 2019, in his early 60s, after he noticed pencil portraits of locals hanging on the walls of a coffee shop in Columbus, Georgia.

It’s another self-publishing-to-traditional story. Other examples I’ve written about include:

• Brynne Weaver,
• Raven Kennedy,
• Chloe Walsh,
• Keri Lake,
• and Penelope Douglas

Levi self-published Theo of Golden in 2023. His niece, Aron Ritchie, helped with promotion and has said the book “sold itself.” It sold well enough through word of mouth that Simon & Schuster‘s Atria imprint acquired it, and by 2026 it had sold more than 750,000 copies and spent 14 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the New York Times fiction bestseller list.

The character of Theo is partly inspired by Levi’s brother Gary, a missionary who died in 2012. The portrait artist in the novel is drawn from his real-life friend Garry Pound, who actually painted the portraits that first caught Levi’s eye.

Synopsis

Theo is an 86-year-old man from Portugal who arrives in the fictional Georgia town of Golden just before Easter, saying only that he is there “on business.” At the local coffee shop, he discovers 92 pencil portraits of residents and sets about buying each one and returning it to the person depicted. Each portrait creates a meeting, generating a substory. The novel asks: who is Theo and why he seems so utterly alone in the world.

My Review

I can see what Levi was going for. The structure- the slow revelation of a mysterious, wise older figure and his effect on others- is reminiscent of Tuesdays with Morrie, or A Man Called Ove, or even The Correspondent. The idea is that the more we uncover Theo, the more attached we become. For me, it didn’t work.

I got to page 197 and realised I didn’t care. Not about Theo, and not about any of the other characters either. The novel cycles through a fairly large cast. We meet them briefly as Theo returns each portrait, but the rotation happens fast enough that keeping names straight and remembering who knows whom became difficult. By halfway through, I hadn’t connected with any of them enough to keep going.

The pace is slow, but it felt meandering. I kept waiting for something to hook me, and it never came. 

With 187 pages still to go and other books waiting, I put it down. Life is too short to keep reading something that isn’t working.

I’m clearly not alone. As of October 2026, Theo of Golden is the 12th most DNF-marked book on Goodreads, with 19,471 readers marking it did-not-finish.

Other readers on Goodreads echo a similar experience.

Margie writes: “I really just wanted the book to be over almost from the time I started it.”

Katie O. describes it as “impossibly wholesome characters swapping gratuitous speeches of gratitude over the most inane observations of an unrealistically wholesome life.”

Heather, who also didn’t finish, says simply: “I just couldn’t get on with Theo and his meandering.” 

What I Liked / What I Didn’t

What I liked

The premise. An elderly man quietly returning portraits to strangers and opening up their stories is a beautiful idea. And there’s something authentic about where this book came from.

What I didn’t

The execution didn’t match the concept for me. Too many characters introduced too quickly, not enough time with any of them to build real investment. Theo himself remained opaque in a way that felt withholding rather than intriguing. And the pace: too gentle. If you need narrative momentum to stay engaged, this will test you.

Final Verdict

This book has clearly moved a lot of people. I am not one of them. If you love quiet, character-driven stories with a spiritual warmth and don’t mind a slow burn, you may find exactly what those readers found. Otherwise, steer clear.

Borrow it from the library. It costs you nothing to try, and you’ll know quickly enough whether it’s for you.