Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

The Secret History (Abridged Version) by Donna Tartt

288 reviews

emisbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

an incredible book exploring morality, friendship, and academics. i am floored. this book was truly incredible. whilst the characters were unlikeable and pretentious, its obvious that that was the idea. 

no other book exists anymore. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Alcoholism, Violence, Blood, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Murder, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Classism, Religious bigotry, Homophobia, Incest, and Mental illness

Minor: Rape and Sexual violence

sasquatch_3's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-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

Graphic: Murder, Incest, Gun violence, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual violence, Self harm, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Drug abuse, Grief, Drug use, Death, Cursing, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Antisemitism, Hate crime, Mental illness, and Vomit

aristarcodisamo's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Alcoholism, Death, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Incest, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Domestic abuse, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Homophobia, Misogyny, Cursing, Death of parent, and Eating disorder

jcoates's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.25

This dark academia story didn’t disappoint, though

I expected a cult organization driving Henry and crew into murder (depending on your perspective it might as well be).

 

More than the plot itself, I was drawn to the characters themselves. It was only after

Bunny was murdered, and we meet his family and learn the atmosphere he was raised in, that I felt remorse for losing such a colorful character, despite his shortcomings.

Tartt’s prose is very lyrical which made it easy to enjoy despite the slow pacing of the story. Some descriptions or word choices made me pause, though. Their use IMO are no longer politically correct so coming across them made me wonder what year the novel was written.

Overall, it’s a favorite dark academia novel for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Drug use, Toxic friendship, and Death

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Homophobia, Sexual assault, Antisemitism, Rape, and Incest

sugar_fox's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This book, despite taking me a long time to finish reading is a must-read for anyone and everyone. Never in this book was there a moment where I thought it was dull. Even the everyday occurrences in this school was made intriguing beyond belief, hell, I’d go as to say I enjoyed every moment of this book. Never did I hate it, something rare for me. The only thing, if you hate being made to feel stupid, don’t read this book. The amount of literary references, and the many others I probably missed was crazy.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Murder, Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Cursing, Sexism, Violence, Gaslighting, Grief, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Incest, Death, Drug abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Car accident, and Outing

faithstuff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Panic attacks/disorders, Chronic illness, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Dysphoria, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Classism, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Death, Incest, Violence, Gore, Grief, and Medical content

avignaa's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense 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

3.0

The premises was great, the writing is beautiful. However, i find it lazy to take 8 years to write a book and relying on slurs to make a commentary on dark academia. Hearing the audiobook narrated by the author and saying these slurs with her whole chest was definitely something.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Sexism, Racism, Racial slurs, Alcoholism, Death, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Murder, Incest, and Misogyny

Minor: Rape

sgtbuckaroo's review against another edition

dark 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? No

4.0

I really did enjoy reading this book, the characters and the story. However, enjoying the characters does not mean liking them as people. Because they are most definitely not meant to be likeable people. Enjoyable? Yes. Likeable? No.

They are all, in some way or another and some more than others, people who you wouldn’t want to be around in real life. Each character has at least one undesirable trait, and they are all morally gray if not explicitly bad people. However, I still found them enjoyable, which I believe is made possible by the fact that they are clearly not meant to be likeable as human beings.

I also found it very interesting to read about and analyze Richard’s perspective of everyone else, and compare it to my understanding of them (although using only Richards observations).

The writing was good, as one would expect from a writer such as Donna Tartt, although a little difficult at some points which I believe is because  I am not a native English speaker. However, even though some parts were more difficult than others, they were never to the extent of being too much or unintelligible. 

I’ve put off reading this book for quite some time, but I’m very glad I got to reading it. It’s a great story, and a very interesting one.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Murder, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Domestic abuse, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Cursing, Death, and Gun violence

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, Incest, Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Panic attacks/disorders

uss_mary_shelley's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Addiction, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Self harm

Minor: Misogyny, Rape, and Sexism

katherinek's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Drug use, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Racial slurs, Grief, and Incest