Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - The Secret History

i finished this last night and was debating whether i should burn this book or leave it for others to suffer from

i cant even give this a rating cause i dont know if i love it or hate it

this was the journey of all journeys, i laughed (a little as it was morbid af), looked up hard words and last of all...............CRIED

A LOT

LIKE THOSE LAST 25 PAGES LEFT ME IN SHAMBLES................. SHAMBLES

i loved henry at the start (first half) of the book, but as it wen on, all the characters (especially him) started to become so....horrible. so i hated him by page 604. i somehow knew that he wasnt going to make it as i read a spoiler (not really) which was like "its so sad that henry wont see his roses bloom" so i was like "hes either going to go to jail or get killed" but ohhh how much worse it was. I DIED LIKE LITERALLY DIED reading his suicide, im sorry, but this is a very touchy topic for me and i couldnt handle it

no matter how much i hated these characters, i was reading about them for a week, 600 pgs so i did form a connection even if it was negative so it killed me to read that, noone should have to go that way.......and what made it worse was when he kissed camilla and told her "i love you" then shot himself...in front of her and everyone. and when in the epilogue richard told camilla he loved her and proposed to her and she said "i cant, i love henry"....god that did wonders to my mentality

listen, if you want to read this...........please please please look up trigger warnings

i was very uncomfortable with some things that were mentioned

nvm ill just mention some here:

incest (when i read that i was thinking of not even finishing it cause that's how uncomfortable it made me), suicide, domestic abuse, self harm, homophobia, suicide attempt, murder, alchoholism (lots of it unfortunantly), drug abuse, addiction, death, toxic friendship, blood, racism, gun violence

i honestly dont know whether this is my favourite book of all time or the worst book ive ever read but know if i recommend this to you then youre either my worst enemy and i want you to suffer or i love you a lot and i want you to suffer

i KNOW that i wont stop thinking about this book, its always in there (im talking about the pain btw) at the back of my mind haunting me

im so conflicted cause i have no idea how im feeling ughhh

but what i do know is that this was disatrous, morbid, depressing,and painful so read know youre in for that

Content Warnings

april_anya's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have so many feelings about this book that I'm not sure I could adequately put them into words.

Its original title, 'The God of Illusions', is much more apt at encapsulating what is in my mind one of the novel's greatest themes: the distortion and romanticisation of human behaviour, of human immorality. The twins' charmingly enigmatic relationship is actually abusive and self-centred; Henry's seemingly simple actions are later revealed to be heavily calculated and manipulative; and Julian, perhaps the 'god of Illusions', becomes - in Henry's mind - nothing but a hypocrite and a coward. This reality's gradual reveal gave me a distinctly melancholy feeling, added to with the fact that not one character has a neat or happy ending (or really an ending at all).

The prose itself is absolutely stunning, lyrical and rich. Witty and dynamic dialogue is interwoven with elegant (if sometimes slightly long-winded) descriptions, and (my personal favourite!) academic discussions of classical literature and civilisation. I like to underline particularly beautiful or interesting lines I come across when reading, and there isn't a single page in this book without one. There are a lot of pages.

Many people criticise 'A Secret History' for being too unnecessarily drawn out, but for the most part I didn't really think so? At some points, however, some scenes do feel a little redundant and repetitive - but each contributes at least something to either plot or character development. In addition, it is important to acknowledge the absolute lack of diversity within a cast of exclusively rich, white Classics students.. in some ways, Tartt can be seen to criticise this elitism within academia (

it does, you know, lead to murder</spoiler) but she definitely romanticises it too.

My main criticism of the book, instead, is perhaps slightly pedantic; whilst a rich variety of scenes and interactions contribute to character development greatly (as well as posing interesting ideas in their own right), I felt some of these could have been tied up more neatly at the end. Many are introduced and never mentioned again.

What happened with Francis' panic disorder? Did Henry actually attempt to kill Charles, or was he under delusion?

In many cases these ambiguities reflected well the uncertain, unreliable narration and moral ambiguity (some things are much more impactful when the reader is left to make their own conclusions!), but in some I felt they did not.

There is so much else I could say, but I'd be here far too long. Here are a couple of my absolute favourite scenes, descriptions and dialogue within the novel:

'"It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! ... If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn."'

'It was like a painting too vivid to be real - every pebble, every blade of grass sharply defined, the sky so blue it hurt me to look at it. Camilla was limp in Henry's arms, her head thrown back like a dead girl's, and the curve of her throat beautiful and lifeless. The hem of her dress fluttered abstractly in the breeze. Henry's trousers were spattered with drops the size of quarters, too red to be blood, as if he'd had a paintbrush slung at him. In the overwhelming stillness, between our echoless footsteps, the pulse sang thin and fast in my ears.'

'"Tell him I'm in the bath."
"He's in the bath," I said.
"He is not in the bath," said Henry. "He is standing in the room with you. I can hear him."'

'"It was the most important night of my life,' he said calmly. 'It enabled me to do what I've always wanted most."
"Which is?"
"To live without thinking."'

'Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.'

Content Warnings

mollymhope's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’m honestly quite confused how to rate this book and if your planning on taking time to read a review as you debate reading this I suggest you read this one. This book is not an easy read. It took me a while to read it and has left me in a slump that I do not see a way out of. Do not confuse this with me disliking book. I like this book and think Tart is a brilliant author. Just be prepared to have to pause and reread certain things, google words, put the book down and pace a bit, and get incredibly frustrated from the point of view that we receive this book from. The ending is deeply unsatisfying but I think if it was any more satisfying it would have ruined the mysterious air the rest of the book was written. What I’m trying to say is this book will leave you slightly confused and frustrated however I highly encourage you to read it if only so I don’t have to suffer alone.

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jwells's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

One of those books that make me glad I gave up giving star ratings. I could hardly put it down and devoured it like popcorn, and yet I have all kinds of quibbles with it. It's like I had fun at the time, but don't respect myself in the morning. I'd have to give it a high rating, as a thriller, since it successfully held my rapt attention, but does it aspire to literariness? In that case, thumbs down.

In chapter one, I was desperately wishing Tartt had had an actual professor, or even a graduate student, read her manuscript, so that such a reader could have gently pointed out the wild fantasy of her premise that a university would allow a professor to force students to drop "all their other classes except mine" and that they'd let classics count for all the distribution requirements (even the lab science requirement? what, did reading Aristotle's Physics count? LOL) I've seen some diva-rockstar professors, but nobody has that kind of power. What's so special about Julian anyway, that the college would bend over backwards to his insane demands? Seems to me he could be instantly replaced by any freshly minted classics PhD, any year they wanted.

I was sure, based on how big of a reach this was, that Tartt was setting up Julian to be the villain, a manipulative mastermind that would pull all the strings until the murder happened. If that was the case, I didn't see it. He seemed like a vague, shallow, self-centered sort of fellow, who had not much idea what was going on, until the very final clue dropped. I didn't see any reason the plot demanded that his students couldn't take other classes, why they had to have this utterly bizarre one-professor college experience. Why not just have them sign up for their distribution requirements and then skip those classes, because they were such a Greek-obsessed little clique?

The only purpose Julian seemed to serve, was a lot of heavy-handed foreshadowing in chapter one. I was grateful when we didn't get a lot more of his teaching after that. Whew. Still, I wish there had been a classics academic beta reader. If nothing else, that person could have sorted out the mix up between Biblical and Attic Greek, which have been put into a blender here. I suppose if we are postulating 18 to 20 year olds who are fluent enough to converse in Attic Greek, we may as well add on that they also fluently read Biblical Greek. It's just not clear from the book that Tartt realizes they are different things. I am not a Greek scholar, but my understanding is that if you know Biblical (can read the New Testament), that doesn't mean you know Attic (can read Homer or Plato). Or vice versa.

How high of a standard should I hold the book to? Is it a fluffy genre thriller that just happens to be set on a college campus, so that all the Greek stuff is mere scene setting? Then, who cares about my nitpicking. Or is it supposed to be literary? In that case, another couple of editorial passes might have helped.

Content Warnings

sammyantha's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

wow amazing. kinda at a loss for words. this book was an absolute joy to read, such a wild ride. beautifully written. the characters were amazing and so well built and complex

Content Warnings

mellowreading's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book became a 5 star for me only at its very end, around the last 50-70 pages but was still very good. I liked a lot of the tropes used and overall vibes. I worried it wouldn’t be suspenseful with the murder and perpetrators being revealed in the prologue, but there were many scenes after the murder took place that had my heart racing. Very fun and emotionally challenging read. I think Francis was the only character I didn’t have a love/hate relationship with.

The scene in Julians office had my blood pumping, I was saying “oh god, oh god” out loud. That scene alone alongisde the drastic exposition of what kinds of people the characters truly are elevated the book from a 4.75 to a 5 for me. Donna does such a good job of creating tension and introducing information in such a way that it jars you.

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