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Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Classism
Minor: Vomit
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Outing
Minor: Cancer, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Rape, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Car accident
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Classism
Moderate: Homophobia, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Suicide, Blood, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Mental illness, Vomit, Medical content
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Minor: Biphobia, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Death of parent, Outing, Gaslighting, Abandonment
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug use, Suicide, Murder, Classism
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Violence, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail
These people are like mannequins dressed in philosophical monologues. Richard is the literary equivalent of beige paint—he watches, he narrates, he adds nothing. Camilla is a sentient soft-focus lens, described with all the emotional depth of a perfume ad. And Henry? If a thesaurus grew legs and developed a god complex, it’d be him. They all orbit each other in a haze of cigarettes and classical illusions, but their actual relationships feel manufactured and hollow. Bunny’s the only one with a discernible pulse, and even that’s mostly beer and bad opinions. They’re distinctive, yes. Believable, no. And likable? Absolutely not.
Here’s where Tartt earns her keep. Hampden College is peak aesthetic: gothic academia with a side of existential dread. The snow falls like a blanket of secrets, the buildings loom with silent menace, and the setting does all the heavy lifting. If I rated this book on vibe alone, it’d be a masterpiece. Unfortunately, atmosphere is the wine-dark sea that hides the fact the ship is full of holes.
Tartt’s prose straddles the line between hauntingly lyrical and embarrassingly overwritten. It’s like she wants to make sure you know she’s read everything from Plato to Poe, and by god, you’re going to hear about it. The cadence is lovely, the vocabulary rich, but after a while, it feels like being cornered at a party by someone reciting Yeats for attention. Occasionally brilliant, but too often self-indulgent.
This book starts with a murder and then takes forever to do anything interesting with it. There’s no escalation, just endless conversations about Greek philosophy, wool sweaters, and moral decay. By the time something actually happens, I had to remind myself why I was supposed to care. It tries to be a tragedy in the classical sense, but without the momentum, stakes, or emotional investment to earn it. If I wanted to watch pretentious people sulk for hours, I’d go to a film studies mixer.
I was curious—for about the first hundred pages. Then the intrigue gave way to inertia. I kept waiting for that promised spiral into madness, but instead got a slow-motion collapse padded with grandiloquent fluff. It dangles questions—Why did they do it? Will they get caught?—but doesn’t seem too interested in answering them, just in watching everyone drink scotch and quote Aeschylus.
The characters’ decisions barely track with human behavior, unless you assume everyone involved has a mild psychosis and a dictionary addiction. The “friendship” dynamic makes no sense: why is Richard even in this group, other than to narrate it? Why do any of them stay loyal to each other? The logic of the world is a hot mess—no professors, no consequences, no one notices a kid is missing for days. The book wants to be mythic, but the relationships are cardboard cutouts dressed in tragic drag.
Look, I wanted to love it. I wanted to sink into the vibe, clutch a teacup, and whisper “how profound” into the night. But once you peel away the atmospheric lacquer, you’re left with a story that’s slow, self-important, and emotionally cold. It has its moments—lines that cut, images that linger—but it’s buried under the weight of its own ego. I finished it because I was already too deep in to quit. Not because I cared. Not because it was fun. Because I was hoping it would become the book it thinks it is. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Alcohol, Classism
Minor: Cursing, Death, Infidelity, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Vomit, Death of parent
Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Gun violence, Murder, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Car accident, Alcohol
Minor: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt