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3mmers's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
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
5.0
The first problem with reviewing The Secret History is that whether you will like it is almost entirely independent of its actual quality. Your enjoyment of it is based far more on personality than on any objective factor. I loved The Secret History, but that’s more because I’m already a chronically pretentious liberal arts graduate. Liking this book does not reflect well on you. I’m a natural hater so I could both tolerate and empathize with the judgemental and discontented characters. It’s easy for me to endure a book about feeling different and special and — yes — uniquely more intelligent than your peers. To a certain extent I’ve been there. No actual castles or murder or anything but I did go to a university full of people who secretly believed that they were the only ones actually learning anything. And even more full of just the most bizarre inhuman personality quirks, like the guy who’d awkwardly wrestle every conversation on to the subject of The Smiths. If, on the other hand, you have less tolerance for really awful rich twats, I can’t honestly say that even the great writing and thriller plot will be enough to overcome just how unendurable the main cast will be for you.
In other words, you need to be down with reading a book about people you are not supposed to like even a little. I saw a reviewer on Instagram say that they hadn’t enjoyed the book because the characters were xenophobic and it blew my mind because the xenophobia is there to indicate that these are terrible people, and also because they do straight up murder an innocent guy, which might possibly be worse. It’s like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the entertainment is in the things that only the obscenely wealthy and morally decrepit people would do. Fortunately, I’ve always been fascinated in affluential decrepitude (as evidenced by a penchant for business memoirs and Knives Out) and I already liked Donna Tartt from The Goldfinch.
The second problem with reviewing The Secret History is that it’s genuinely very very good. I don’t think you have to like it even a little to acknowledge that it’s excellently written. But the trouble is that things that are good are way harder to talk about than things that are bad, especially in this case. There’s the adage from Anna Karenina that ‘happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’ which applies just as well to novels as it does to personal relationships. Just about all good novels (excepting obvious outliers like House of Leaves) are good for mostly the same reasons. Bad novels, on the other hand, can be bad for all sorts of bizarre and unforeseen reasons because there is infinite variation among things that don’t work. When I think about the reasons that TSH is good they feel either self-evident (plot good) or ephemeral (plot good because compelling). A huge part of the reason that this book is so good is in its subtlety and effortlessness; in the moment it is very hard to tell that it is doing anything. The best parts of TSH only become apparent in comparison.Fortunately, TSH was also sufficiently definitive that it has some genre peers that it can be very effectively compared to.
In case you haven’t been on Instagram or TikTok recently and missed the first hand experience of this whole phenomenon, The Secret History is the definitive text for a whole literary and aesthetic sub-genre: dark academia. In literature this is characterized by a higher education setting, pronounced class tension between a comparatively poorer protagonist and the wealth and excess of their peers and of the learning establishment itself, and finally the juxtaposition between the staid calm of old and rich universities and an act of violence. Most of these books are technically academic thrillers. I’ll be calling upon Bunny by Mona Awad and If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio, both of which include direct comparisons to TSH in their back cover reviews. They’ve invited this comparison, so let’s compare, and hopefully thereby unravel why TSH looms so far above them.
The Secret History is a reverse thriller that opens with the revelation that a cohort of six Greek students attending an elite liberal arts school kill one of their peers and then attempt to hide the evidence. The thriller is in how they come to murder one of their own and how this violence permanently changes them. The most obvious, and in my mind most significant, difference between this and the general structure of the rest of the genre is that TSH has comparatively a much longer exposition. Most of the first third of book is dedicated to the good times, to what it was like before things spiralled out of control. It is comparatively slow-paced and low-tension but this long period of lightness is the crucial ingredient to the compelling plot that starts up later. Without much action or tension the primary draw of this section is aesthetic enjoyment. The appeal is the vibes of it. Remember how I mentioned dark academia is an aesthetic sub-genre in addition to a literary one? This is where that comes from. The audience can engage in vicarious enjoyment of the ease and affluence of going to your friend’s castle for the weekend. I compared TSH to Keeping Up with the Kardashians in the introduction because a part of the appeal of this sub-genre is a kind of wealth tourism. These works star blank protagonists amid the sort of eccentricity that is only tolerated in the ultra-rich because that is the experience it intends to present to the audience. We are also here to be swept into the kind of eccentricity that is only tolerated in the ultra-rich. There’s a lot more studying in this novel than there is in its two peers, more than there is in most novels with set in a school of some sort (with the exception of A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik). It is aesthetically entertaining in the way of a Studio Ghibli movie; think of the many scenes in Whisper of the Heart spent watching Shizuku write. Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki used moments like these intentionally to create ‘ma’, or stillness, and it is this concept of stillness that I think of when reflecting on the slow exposition of TSH. Miyazaki used ‘ma’ to create tension. The contrast between the quiet moments made the tension and action of the dramatic moments resonate much more strongly. The technique works the same way here.
It would be a mistake to imagine that just because people enjoy The Secret History for aesthetic reasons, that it or even any of its parts have nothing to offer but aesthetic entertainment. The purpose of its slow opening is to lay the groundwork for the thriller plot at its end. Its action is compelling thanks to the strength of the set-up through inaction. The expository chapters establish fun jaunts out to the castle but they are important because these fun jaunts demonstrate the relationship between the characters and these relationships are what define and motivate the characters’ actions once they get into the thriller section. Relationships need to be very strong and effectively communicated for them to restrain behaviour in a way that feels organic rather than either contrived or random. This is most obvious in comparison. The trouble with organic storytelling elements is they can be hard to recognize in isolation. Fortunately, the biggest difference between TSH and IWWV (which otherwise have vary similar premises and character dynamics) is that IWWV doesn’t have the same long exposition and begins much closer to its action. As a consequence its characters feel artificial and unmotivated. At a fundamental level we have no reason why they should be friends if they’re all so unstable and suspicious of each other. We’ve never seen them in normal times so their relationships are unknown to us. TSH, in contrast, leans very heavily on its character dynamics so takes a very long time to establish them. It is essential for the audience to understand not only that Bunny will be murdered, but that he’s also the kind of charismatic shithead who can both be a friend and also kinda deserve it. The most important character to understand here is Henry, the undisputed leader of the group. It’s his actions and his weaknesses that will come to direct the actions of the rest of the gang when things start to go off the rails. The reason we can understand and accept the characters acting in emotional and illogical ways during the thriller section is that their emotional motivations have been clearly established before we get there. This is what makes the plot so strong.
An important and, in my opinion under appreciated, contributing factor to the strength of the overall plot is its verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is a weird concept in fiction because basically every story needs it to be successful regardless of how realistic it is. These two qualities are similar but not synonyms. Verisimilitude is the degree to which something seems like it could be true, regardless of the likelihood of it being so. It’s relevant even in speculative fiction. As an example, Game of Thrones succeeds in a large part thanks to its verisimilitude. It may have ice zombies and dragons and magic, but all the characters still behave in a way that feels accurate, including when interacting with the fantasy elements. The Secret History is a masterful demonstration of the benefits of strong verisimilitude, though, as before, its impact on the story as a whole can only really be appreciated in its absence. It is not uncommon for this sub-genre to have unnatural or supernatural material, and while TSH is very reserved in its use of them it does feature fantastical elements. Or element.I would classify the deadly bacchanal that Henry, Francis, and the twins attempt and eventually execute off-page throughout the beginning of the novel is speculative. In The Bacchae by Euripides, the clear inspiration for this ritual both on a meta-level and diagetically within the book, the ritual and subsequent madness is explicitly divine in nature. TSH treats it vaguely, to its benefit. It falls into the category of the preternatural, a popular classification of phenomena in the pre-modern and early modern period for things that were beyond the ordinary but not far enough to be supernatural. The bunny drugs in Bunny and the method acting madness that overtakes the characters in IWWV are both preternatural (in contrast to the bunny transformation ritual or Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo). The overall effect is a novel with a very strong, even spooky atmosphere where the stakes established by normal society (the police etc.) still feel relevant. The eerie bacchanal and the loyalty that the gang feels to each other and to Henry’s increasingly paranoid plots adds an otherworldly excitement to proceedings. It underlines the juxtaposition between university (a step into the adult world, sure, but ultimately safe, boring, and supervised) and the violence of three deaths that will become a key tenet of the sub-genre. The groundedness means that the eternal standbys of the thriller genre, police, emergency rooms, the threat of jail and the long-term societal consequences of the legal system, still have a place here. I complained at length in my Bunny review about the lack of verisimilitude. The book is intended to be surreal, but fails — or perhaps succeeds too well, I think it comes down to personal taste — and becomes meaningless and frustrating. Finishing it felt like a profound waste of time. However, I did take one good thing away from reading Bunny and it was an appreciation for how verisimilitude contributes to TSH’s overall tone. IWWV leans hard into its theatrical premise, quoting extremely heavily from Shakespeare, there’s at least one quote on basically every page. This is fun, but can make the action feel artificial; combined with the poorly motivated emotional changes of the characters, it can sometimes feel like a badly written episode of TV where characters act like shitheads or things go wrong because the writer needed to pull a conflict out of their ass rather than any organic progression in the story.
A final note, and one I returned to a lot while reading other books both in the dark academia sub-genre and in others, is the thematic final message of The Secret History. I really like the way the novel ends.It’s a bitter ending, not even bittersweet since the only sweetness is that some of the gang survives. All of them are irrevocably changed by their experience, their lives irrevocably ruined. I like it because the thematic character arc of it is seeing these characters that have everything lose it all, pushed down an unavoidable path by their own actions. It is very much in the pattern of Greek tragedy, the fall destined by the gods, the fatal flaw which the protagonist, despite their greatest efforts, cannot overcome. I appreciate the thematic parallel there. I also like how satisfying it is for the plot to hinge on a rich genius failing to realize the limits of his intelligence. Henry’s fatal flaw, the one that manipulates Bunny to his death, all his other friends to self-destruction, and himself to suicide is his faith in his own intelligence. His certainty that he is always the smartest person in the room drives his paranoia; his schemes are what make the plot spiral out of control. He doesn’t even have to be wrong about that self assessment. It’s that most elusive of tragic emotions, catharsis, purification through strong emotion. It’s probably good for the liberal arts student pretentious enough to put up with these characters for a whole novel to see the eventual ending that no matter how smart you are you are all too human when push comes to shove (off a muddy hiking path, into a gully). I felt that this was a much stronger thematic conclusion to a story centrally about pride. Henry and the gang can do anything they want, study what they, not work, live where they like, kill a guy in a bacchanalia, and end with the consequences of that pride crushing them back down to earth. It is important that Richard, our protagonist and the only member of the Greek class with any external responsibilities to worry about, is also the only character who is semi-functional at the conclusion of the novel. He feels existentially empty now that he has peered in to that year and a half of extravagance and excitement, but in the grand scheme of things he still has a normal life. This ending played upon my mind as I read the conclusions of the other two books. Bunny I hated because its resolution is so vaporous. It commits so hard to literary pretensions that in my opinion it fails to establish anything and it was all just a dream! IWWV is the more interesting case study. Unlike TSH it goes for a more personal conclusion, ending with the characters recognizing the fundamental nature of their relationship, which they had previously been wilfully ignorant of. I will admit a small frisson of resonance; the San Juan islands are right near where I live, I see them everyday while walking my dog. But beyond that unexpected coincidence I found myself disappointed that the literal resolution is that the guy with the most cause and motivation to do the murder did the murder. It’s not even ‘the butler did it’; its ‘the shady dude casually wiping blood off the tire iron he’s carrying around did it.’ Maybe its crass but I did expect a little more of a subversion. In TSH the subversion is that none of them get away with it, not really. No amount of money and education stops you from being human.
I’m struggling to summarize why I like The Secret History so much. It’s not just that the most impressive success of the book is in the subtlety of is execution, it’s also that basically every element of the book is so good that it’s hard to pick any one out. In the end it comes down to the creation of the perfect vibes. I think this is why it has been so popular as an aesthetic movement; the vibes are simply impeccable.
In other words, you need to be down with reading a book about people you are not supposed to like even a little. I saw a reviewer on Instagram say that they hadn’t enjoyed the book because the characters were xenophobic and it blew my mind because the xenophobia is there to indicate that these are terrible people, and also because they do straight up murder an innocent guy, which might possibly be worse. It’s like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the entertainment is in the things that only the obscenely wealthy and morally decrepit people would do. Fortunately, I’ve always been fascinated in affluential decrepitude (as evidenced by a penchant for business memoirs and Knives Out) and I already liked Donna Tartt from The Goldfinch.
The second problem with reviewing The Secret History is that it’s genuinely very very good. I don’t think you have to like it even a little to acknowledge that it’s excellently written. But the trouble is that things that are good are way harder to talk about than things that are bad, especially in this case. There’s the adage from Anna Karenina that ‘happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’ which applies just as well to novels as it does to personal relationships. Just about all good novels (excepting obvious outliers like House of Leaves) are good for mostly the same reasons. Bad novels, on the other hand, can be bad for all sorts of bizarre and unforeseen reasons because there is infinite variation among things that don’t work. When I think about the reasons that TSH is good they feel either self-evident (plot good) or ephemeral (plot good because compelling). A huge part of the reason that this book is so good is in its subtlety and effortlessness; in the moment it is very hard to tell that it is doing anything. The best parts of TSH only become apparent in comparison.Fortunately, TSH was also sufficiently definitive that it has some genre peers that it can be very effectively compared to.
In case you haven’t been on Instagram or TikTok recently and missed the first hand experience of this whole phenomenon, The Secret History is the definitive text for a whole literary and aesthetic sub-genre: dark academia. In literature this is characterized by a higher education setting, pronounced class tension between a comparatively poorer protagonist and the wealth and excess of their peers and of the learning establishment itself, and finally the juxtaposition between the staid calm of old and rich universities and an act of violence. Most of these books are technically academic thrillers. I’ll be calling upon Bunny by Mona Awad and If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio, both of which include direct comparisons to TSH in their back cover reviews. They’ve invited this comparison, so let’s compare, and hopefully thereby unravel why TSH looms so far above them.
The Secret History is a reverse thriller that opens with the revelation that a cohort of six Greek students attending an elite liberal arts school kill one of their peers and then attempt to hide the evidence. The thriller is in how they come to murder one of their own and how this violence permanently changes them. The most obvious, and in my mind most significant, difference between this and the general structure of the rest of the genre is that TSH has comparatively a much longer exposition. Most of the first third of book is dedicated to the good times, to what it was like before things spiralled out of control. It is comparatively slow-paced and low-tension but this long period of lightness is the crucial ingredient to the compelling plot that starts up later. Without much action or tension the primary draw of this section is aesthetic enjoyment. The appeal is the vibes of it. Remember how I mentioned dark academia is an aesthetic sub-genre in addition to a literary one? This is where that comes from. The audience can engage in vicarious enjoyment of the ease and affluence of going to your friend’s castle for the weekend. I compared TSH to Keeping Up with the Kardashians in the introduction because a part of the appeal of this sub-genre is a kind of wealth tourism. These works star blank protagonists amid the sort of eccentricity that is only tolerated in the ultra-rich because that is the experience it intends to present to the audience. We are also here to be swept into the kind of eccentricity that is only tolerated in the ultra-rich. There’s a lot more studying in this novel than there is in its two peers, more than there is in most novels with set in a school of some sort (with the exception of A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik). It is aesthetically entertaining in the way of a Studio Ghibli movie; think of the many scenes in Whisper of the Heart spent watching Shizuku write. Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki used moments like these intentionally to create ‘ma’, or stillness, and it is this concept of stillness that I think of when reflecting on the slow exposition of TSH. Miyazaki used ‘ma’ to create tension. The contrast between the quiet moments made the tension and action of the dramatic moments resonate much more strongly. The technique works the same way here.
It would be a mistake to imagine that just because people enjoy The Secret History for aesthetic reasons, that it or even any of its parts have nothing to offer but aesthetic entertainment. The purpose of its slow opening is to lay the groundwork for the thriller plot at its end. Its action is compelling thanks to the strength of the set-up through inaction. The expository chapters establish fun jaunts out to the castle but they are important because these fun jaunts demonstrate the relationship between the characters and these relationships are what define and motivate the characters’ actions once they get into the thriller section. Relationships need to be very strong and effectively communicated for them to restrain behaviour in a way that feels organic rather than either contrived or random. This is most obvious in comparison. The trouble with organic storytelling elements is they can be hard to recognize in isolation. Fortunately, the biggest difference between TSH and IWWV (which otherwise have vary similar premises and character dynamics) is that IWWV doesn’t have the same long exposition and begins much closer to its action. As a consequence its characters feel artificial and unmotivated. At a fundamental level we have no reason why they should be friends if they’re all so unstable and suspicious of each other. We’ve never seen them in normal times so their relationships are unknown to us. TSH, in contrast, leans very heavily on its character dynamics so takes a very long time to establish them. It is essential for the audience to understand not only that
An important and, in my opinion under appreciated, contributing factor to the strength of the overall plot is its verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is a weird concept in fiction because basically every story needs it to be successful regardless of how realistic it is. These two qualities are similar but not synonyms. Verisimilitude is the degree to which something seems like it could be true, regardless of the likelihood of it being so. It’s relevant even in speculative fiction. As an example, Game of Thrones succeeds in a large part thanks to its verisimilitude. It may have ice zombies and dragons and magic, but all the characters still behave in a way that feels accurate, including when interacting with the fantasy elements. The Secret History is a masterful demonstration of the benefits of strong verisimilitude, though, as before, its impact on the story as a whole can only really be appreciated in its absence. It is not uncommon for this sub-genre to have unnatural or supernatural material, and while TSH is very reserved in its use of them it does feature fantastical elements. Or element.
A final note, and one I returned to a lot while reading other books both in the dark academia sub-genre and in others, is the thematic final message of The Secret History. I really like the way the novel ends.
I’m struggling to summarize why I like The Secret History so much. It’s not just that the most impressive success of the book is in the subtlety of is execution, it’s also that basically every element of the book is so good that it’s hard to pick any one out. In the end it comes down to the creation of the perfect vibes. I think this is why it has been so popular as an aesthetic movement; the vibes are simply impeccable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Xenophobia, Misogyny, and Incest
clarathromycin's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Donna Tartt’s writing was excellent throughout the book. The characters were strong and you could feel the anticipation build. However, I did feel as if she was taking extraordinary liberties with the use of racial and homophobic slurs in the dialogue of her bigoted characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism, Cursing, Incest, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Vomit, Death, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Addiction, Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Stalking, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Gore, Grief, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Xenophobia, Blood, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Medical content, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Classism, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Torture
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Infidelity, and Animal death
lindsayerin's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Death, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, Self harm, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Animal death, Homophobia, Murder, Racial slurs, and Alcohol
Moderate: Toxic friendship, Incest, Classism, Xenophobia, and Mental illness
Minor: Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Antisemitism, and Blood
afion's review against another edition
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Gun violence, Suicide, Incest, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Alcohol, Murder, Racism, and Drug use
Moderate: Classism
Minor: Rape
hannaelisab's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
donna tartt has a way of making you care about unmoral, unlikeable characters just to reveal an even darker secret a few pages later. obviously, her writing style is gorgeously aesthetic — the quote ,,beauty is terror...whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.'' will forever be ingrained in my brain. on the other hand, i found that the secret history had some pacing problems. the first part of the book (which are about 250 pages, maybe more!) were so slow plot-wise that i had real difficulty coming back to continue reading. the second part of the book definitely picked up the pace though, and while the novel could've been 200 pages shorter, the murderous plots & fascinatingly terrible characters truly sucked me in!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Alcoholism, and Murder
Moderate: Incest, Xenophobia, and Suicide attempt
stelladafloresta's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Mental illness, Drug use, Incest, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Murder, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Xenophobia, Classism, Homophobia, and Misogyny
gretag's review against another edition
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? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Bullying, Car accident, Classism, Drug abuse, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Outing, Homophobia, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Medical content and Vomit
robi_locksley's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
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? It's complicated
1.5
I found this book to be incredibly overwritten. Tartt would use five analogies in a row to describe the exact same thing. There were multiple uses of pure filler with paragraphs devoted to something that did not serve to advance plot, character, atmosphere, or anything else other than the word count.
Unfortunately, this book is also packed full of bigotry. There is racism, homophobia, and misogyny all over the place. And it isn't simply down to the characters being jerks. An actual line from the text, during Richard's first class with Julian: "He poured the tea as solemnly as a mandarin." The only times that bigotry is ever challenged by the narrative is when the bigotry is cartoonishly overt and hostile.
The following is not a spoiler, and serves as an example of the bigotry in this book and the filler.
There is a full page dedicated to discussing a fictional Middle Eastern country which is named Isram. ISRAM. This fictional Middle Eastern country, with only one letter changed from the dominant religion of the Middle East, is described as a terrorist state and is said to have a jihad against the main character's Greek/Classics professor.
This is all pure filler, too. There's absolutely no reason for it to be there. But there it is. Isram.
There is no convincing me that Tartt isn't a horribly bigoted person after reading that.
Unfortunately, this book is also packed full of bigotry. There is racism, homophobia, and misogyny all over the place. And it isn't simply down to the characters being jerks. An actual line from the text, during Richard's first class with Julian: "He poured the tea as solemnly as a mandarin." The only times that bigotry is ever challenged by the narrative is when the bigotry is cartoonishly overt and hostile.
The following is not a spoiler, and serves as an example of the bigotry in this book and the filler.
There is a full page dedicated to discussing a fictional Middle Eastern country which is named Isram. ISRAM. This fictional Middle Eastern country, with only one letter changed from the dominant religion of the Middle East, is described as a terrorist state and is said to have a jihad against the main character's Greek/Classics professor.
This is all pure filler, too. There's absolutely no reason for it to be there. But there it is. Isram.
There is no convincing me that Tartt isn't a horribly bigoted person after reading that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Suicide, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Murder, Racism, Rape, Xenophobia, Violence, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Sexism
nialiversuch's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Mental illness, Classism, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Vomit, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Blood, Bullying, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexism, Violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Xenophobia
Minor: Domestic abuse
autumngk's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
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? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
this book is fucking insane
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Alcoholism, Death, Xenophobia, Gaslighting, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Grief, and Gun violence
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Rape, and Panic attacks/disorders