Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Secret History

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

394 reviews

philosopher_kj's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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

1.5

Content Warnings

eleasofia's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

very unlike anything i've read before and i loved it. the pace was quite slow, the chapters unusually long, and some descriptions of surroundings really verbose, but i was completely captivated after the first chapter/ first 10% of the book. the sometimes long-winded descriptions really were not boring at all but let me imagine everything just more vividly, and the details of rather mundane situations made everything more real and established the relationships between of all characters really well.

i usually prefer third-person pov, but this first person pov was so well written, i often even forgot about it. i loved richard as a narrator. it really felt like a friend telling you a long story - drifting off topic occasionally, going into detail for things that might not matter much to anybody but him. even though he is relatively detached as a narrator, it was very clear how he saw and felt about his friends, which made me love the other main characters - at least until it got complicated, by the ending i had mixed feelings, but i suppose that is exactly what it was supposed to be like. either way, all of them are really well fleshed-out unique characters, so even if you don't like them, you can be intrigued with them. who i liked best fluctuated throughout the story, but i think in the end it's richard and francis for me.

the story itself was very compelling. there were some things i figured out before they happened, but generally i was surprised by the major plot points (at least the ones that hadn't been purposely been given away in the beginning). it felt eerily realistic, exciting, fascinating, but at the same time really relatively mundane, bleak, "normal", like this could have happened to anybody.

i'm glad i didn't read the content warnings before reading the book because they definitely contain spoilers, at least in the sense that some things wouldn't be as surprising anymore. some scenes were disturbing, even relatively graphic, but i enjoyed being caught off-guard.

i'm very much looking forward to re-reading the story. i feel like it's one of those books that will be amazing on the second read when you can pick up on little details and foreshadowing that you missed on the first read.

Content Warnings

angel_kiiss's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I do love reading about bad people. If you don’t like reading about bad or morally grey people I guess don’t read this very good book?

An exceptionally interesting book that is paced well up until the end. The third act is slow but ironically rushes in the end.

I did, however, spend the whole book trying to figure out what part of the character of Bunny or the story inspired Mona Awad to write her novel. So far I’ve still made no connection between the two Bunnys to make sense of it. Other than the fact that it’s about to poor kids getting caught up in the lives of their rich peers while at an exclusive university.

Content Warnings