Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

135 reviews

briochebun's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

4 out of 5 ☆’s.

“Love doesn’t conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.”

ੈ✩‧₊˚

The Secret History has been on my TBR for quite some time and I am so glad that I finally put some time aside to read it.

While I cannot say that my life was forever altered by this novel (though my feelings on that may change with time) I feel as though giving it anything less than 4 starts would be doing it an immense disservice. Readers of TSH will be able to see the impact that the novel has had on the Dark Academia genre and I think that in and of itself is an incredible feat that speaks to Tartt’s skill.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Outing, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Car accident and Death of parent

Minor: Kidnapping

caelinsullivan's review against another edition

dark tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Islamophobia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Sexual assault

nadia_luq's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicide, Islamophobia, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, and Blood

eclloyd's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Islamophobia, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

fulan's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Racial slurs, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Self harm, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Suicide attempt

daybreakreads's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The first 90% of this book: overhyped, poorly researched (details that were factually inaccurate; Plano, CA is two hours’ driving distance from Disneyland, he couldn’t have seen the fireworks from his house, one of the characters reads a book written by the “Persians” which was in Arabic — odd for a book so focused on foreign language, etc.), rather pretentious.

Last 10%: twist ending was interesting, and I enjoyed it, but it didn’t justify the 22 hours I spent listening to the audiobook. The author was the voice actor, and the voice she used for Bunny was incredibly irritating.

Interesting notes:
- this is a slow burn. Doesn’t pick up at all until ~50%. The writing style is intriguing
- none of the characters (even side ones) are “good guys”
- there’s a ton of random racist/antisemetic/homophobic comments, but they’re usually a one-off thing. The only exception to this was 3/4 of the way through there was a recurring trend of anti-Arab things that served no point to the overall plot whatsoever. It was odd for a book written in the 90s. There was a fake country full of “jihadist terrorists” mentioned several times, “sand [n word]” used against a Palestinian (who was only written for a brief moment in which he was yelling as the “angry Arab man” stereotype, “Arab” and “Arabic” were used incorrectly, general xenophobic remarks, etc. And then it just randomly stopped. 

As a Muslim the last thing just came across a bit ridiculous more than anything. I didn’t see the relevance, or the reason to focus significantly more on that than the other marginalized groups.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Fire/Fire injury, and War

alyx7564's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Biphobia, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

suzylit's review against another edition

dark lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

I could have given this novel a higher rating if the pace had been a bit faster. The atmosphere and the characters are well built. Suspense and mystery are indeed present, yet there are a des lengthy passages. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Islamophobia, and Dementia

auburn_phoenix_15's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense

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

4.25

Overall, this book intrigued and confused me on multiple occasions. Initially, the beginning of the book was slow and somewhat disjointed. I think they could have made the beginning shorter and less 'informative' to make it easier to get to know the plot and the characters.

However, once I got into the story, it got terrific, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Along the way, I was shocked by specific things like

when we found out that the twins had sex together and also killed Bunny and another man by 'accident'

, but the ending was the biggest shock.

Henry kills himself with a gun with all of them present in the same room to save all of them

The book taught me many things along the way, including significant life lessons that make a lot of sense and particular phrases in Greek. I would advise anyone that decides to read it to persevere with the book because it is thoroughly good and brings things to a specific light, even if it does make you question reality, what is or not accurate at the end and lead you to have many questions towards the actual story.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder

Minor: Homophobia, Incest, and Islamophobia

alexandrabelze's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad 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

omfg. donna tartt is my mother. she’s insane for this.  holy SHIT!!! every single word was a vital part of this novel–down to the damn syllable. she has perfected the art of writing. the pacing of the book was magnificent and the characterization was stellar. every moment was so VIVID! her word choice was so perfect in every sense and every sentence and paragraph and piece of dialogue flowed so perfectly throughout the entire novel. her use of prose is so …entertaining? idk how to describe her writing but it’s everything i ever needed and more. she created a plot so full and detailed that i have no qualms at all; everything was perfectly laid out and set into place. this is the longest review i’ve written BY FAR. 

okay FIRST OF ALL, the INCEST? mawma i was floored. and camilla refusing to marry richard because she was in love with henry…girl please. be so real. henry’s death was fucking insane. every second of that encounter starting from charles barreling through the door to henry’s body hitting the ground was insane. AND THEN we find out that marion married one of bunny’s brothers!!!!!! stfu!!! and they had a baby!!! and the family decided to nickname it BUNNY. IM SORRY?! and when i read that letter that francis sent to richard my heart STOPPED. i would’ve been so mad at donna had she killed him off istg. he’s my one and only i love him far too much. good god this book. I JUST REMEMBERED the entire ritual that they had? oh my god!!!! donna!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Islamophobia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Vomit, Antisemitism, Stalking, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Rape, and Death of parent