Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

Gizli Tarih by Donna Tartt

131 reviews

theothersideofreading's review against another edition

emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

I really enjoyed the first 350-400 pages, but then I found the book starting to drag on a bit. I was less engaged by the end, though I thought the ending was pretty good

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Suicide, and Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, and Rape

Minor: Islamophobia

hunnybeemarie's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective 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

4.75

The Secret History was everything I hoped it would be! It is, as we all know, THE dark academia book. It explores a ton of interesting themes in amazing depth. It has a lot to say about Beauty; beauty as terror, the desire for beauty, and finding beauty in the macabre. It's really interesting to see the way some of the characters find so much beauty and fascination in such terrible things. 
It also discusses death and fate, isolation and knowledge, control and obsession, class and wealth. The way that Donna Tartt is able to weave so many themes into one book is phenomenal to see. There is never a point in which this book feels scattered or like it's doing too much. It keeps you enthralled from beginning to end.
This book is a masterclass in writing and intrigue. The fact that the "main event" doesn't happen until halfway through the book, but you are interested for all of the pages beforehand and all of the pages afterward, is quite a unique feat. 
I finally feel complete in my dark academic dreams having finally read this book all the way through. I started it once before when I was 13. I got about halfway through and I actually annotated it back then! They are the ugliest annotations I've ever seen and it was pretty funny to be able to see them. I think I thought I was pretty clever lol 😂 I don't know where I got half of the things that I wrote down back then from! The most random, kind of pretentious annotations 💀 
All in all, I loved reading and annotating this book, and it absolutely lives up to the hype. There are a few things that felt a little odd or unnecessary to me that are keeping me from giving it a full five stars, therefore I'm giving the secret history a still VERY good 4.75 ⭐ 
(Please look up the trigger warnings before reading this book)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

rotfaced's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.5

After having been recommended this book dozens of times across my academic and professional career, I can only believe that the people who recommended it have never actually read it themselves. Extremely overblown and unworthy of its legacy. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Islamophobia, and Murder

capricornrisingbby's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Homophobia, Incest, Racial slurs, Racism, Blood, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Murder

Minor: Rape and Suicidal thoughts

michaelcoleallen's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.75

The Secret History by Donna Tartt has an incredibly developed main cast but its real strength is in how those personality traits and quirks manifest in such minor ways in the relaxed environment of a privileged east-coast liberal arts school, yet have the potential to slowly dominate a character when stress (i.e. murder) is applied.

The pacing was quite good. As the novel enters the last two hundred pages the main character, Richard, thinks less and reacts more in the face of consequences from the uh… thing that he must discuss in ancient greek when the gang is in public which builds a quicker finale of events.

I enjoyed my time with the novel and may even reread. I can recommend it on the basis of good prose, great character study, and a pretty gripping narrative even considering the opening spoiler. Just don’t expect it to be eye-opening, transcendent, etc. It’s a murder story told as a thoughtful page-turner and has allusions to things like Proust and The Iliad to boot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief, and Classism

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. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Murder, and Toxic friendship

geilie's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Drug use, Suicide, Blood, Vomit, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Chronic illness, Homophobia, Incest, Grief, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Eating disorder, Sexism, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

victoriak1197's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

This book was very different than I thought it would be. It was a lot slower, with the murder mystery it was always advertised to me going very different than it typically would. A lot of this book is just theme and character exploration, as well as just vibes (mixed with foreshadowing). This book is not just a vibe, it is a state of mind. I was completely absorbed into this book, captivated by the romantic and gothic imagery and prose.

My only criticism for this book is that i wish that Camilla and Francis got a happier ending. I mean, Francis, although marrying someone boring who he won't love, is rich. it's just kinda unfair that Charles got a happier ending than Camilla. I also feel like Camilla could've married Francis, just so Francis didn't have to marry the blonde woman. I know that she didn't marry Richard because she loves Henry (although maybe it was because she just didn't like Richard enough, remember that Richard does describe her as an actress and is harsh to her after he finds out the Charles abused her), but she could've married Francis because it would be different.

But I get that unhappy endings are part of this book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism and Drug use

Minor: Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Suicide, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Classism

winlei's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

3.0

I really had to sit with this book before giving it a rating because I’m so conflicted on so many levels. And maybe that’s what this book wants you to feel - conflict. It’s the simple fact of horrible people doing horrible things and then watching the fall out from it. It’s fascinating. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. It’s terrible but you can’t exactly look away. I had issues with the pacing. The first 250 pages - and yes TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY, at LEAST- were hell to get through. It dragged, so slowly, that I really thought that there was no way I’d be able to make it through. But then it kicked into another gear and while it was still slow, it was definitely well outside of the DNF range. 

It’s fascinating to me that even though this book was written by a woman there’s no actual flushed out female representation. Camilla is a projection of all these men’s desires but with no actual agency herself. But maybe it’s about time women write poorly developed female characters? Like maybe that’s the real representation??Much to think about. 

All in all? I still have no idea how I feel about this book, the story or the execution. I know I could never in good conscience recommend it to anyone else but I’m also at the very least glad I read it.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Incest

Minor: Homophobia, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia

adearen's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Blood, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment

Minor: Animal cruelty, Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, and Islamophobia