Reviews

Excellent, lots of fun despite some ugliness, and of course depending on what you've read or studied before, you'll have a great time picking up on the myriad allusions and direct (though usually unnamed) references to not just ancient, but also 19th and 20th century Western "canon".

I thought often of Cloudsplitter when reading this, and in many ways prefer that book to this one. But when I try to understand why I keep comparing them, it doesn't make much sense, beyond the fact that both evoked the same feeling in me.

cecilia_wendling's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

thechanelmuse's review against another edition

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2.0

I...I don’t understand the hype about this book. There I said it. It’s super slow, overly wordy at times, and way too long in pages for so little to be happening with a group of unlikable characters. Maybe if it were condensed after another edit (like others suggested) it could’ve worked.

ninaltt's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

cam0122's review against another edition

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dark 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? Yes

2.75

sydneyjn's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

The first thing I googled when I finished this was "Why do people like The Secret History?". The prose was beautiful, but it didn't have much else that I enjoyed.

lyakimov's review against another edition

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1.0

Donna Tartt, girl please go get therapy. I wonder how some of the stuff in this book was even allowed to be published or didn’t get edited out. I have rarely read such a bizarre book like this one, with random instances of extreme violent thoughts & behaviors, random drug use, unnecessary incest, and a cult without saying the word ‘cult.’ Donna Tartt, are you good?? I hope she got the help she needed since 2004 because that was some weird shit. Let’s get into it.

CHARACTERS
I hated them all. They all sucked and were so damn stupid and annoying. There is no possible way realistically that these complete dumbasses could get away with TWO murders!! One of which they…mutilated the body while having a ritualistic orgy where they become their animal selves?? Which we still don’t even know what happened there, but honestly I am not sure I want to know.

I think, for being the only one main girl in the story, Camilla was just so bland. Her personality was trivialized by sexist remarks and her twin brother being creepy. The incest was so unnecessary, like why the HELL is it in the book. It serves absolutely no purpose other than shock factor and disgust. I didn’t need that, Donna!!! Seriously!

Richard is such a boring narrator and his random bout of extremely violent thoughts in this one scene were so disgusting and horrifying, like this is literally so unnecessary and that one line of thinking about Camilla’s needs to be cut out because it’s horrendous. Especially since he displays none of this attitude anywhere else in this long ass book, so it was just super random.

PLOT
Let’s do mundane things at college and enter a cult based on Ancient Greece, then discover my friends are covering up a murder in a cult sacrifice, then commit another murder! All in 600 pages!! This could have been put into 300 pages because it was so slow.

The end of the book was AWFUL!! It was a random shooting and then a where are they now sequence. The thing is, I feel like the cult aspect was not really brought up much near the end. Julian is super particular about his students and then isolates his students from the entire school and giving them cultish ideas. However there was so little Julian in the story?? It was just weird how there was so much talk about all the influence he had on them and he was absent for a large part of the book.

RELATIONSHIPS?
This is a book more based on friendships then romantic relationships like stated in the book, but there was an unnecessary amount of romantic undertones in this group. Not necessarily romantic I guess, but creepy obsession with Camilla. Why does Richard love Camilla? She barely even does anything and he just loves her for her looks? It randomly pops up in the story and it’s weird. Charles and Camilla being obsessed with each other in a creepy way? SERIOUSLY?? And Henry being in love with Camilla? HOW ARE ALL THESE RANDOM PLOTLINES SHOWING UP??? And then, NOTHING HAPPENS WITH ANY OF THEM!!! What was the point then??

Okay, I’m done ranting. This was such an odd book but I did enjoy the dark academia horror vibes going on. I feel like the book could be better if there was a less disjointed plot and at least 200 pages taken out.

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