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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
dark
reflective
tense
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
was fun dark academia vibes until the last third of the book turned into a degrassi plot line (???) and idk what overarching message this book was trying to convey but it definitely wanted me to understand this message, whatever it was … ?
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
OMG talk about pretentious drivel. I didn’t think it could get worse than The Fault In Our Stars, but this one managed it. Think about if the chick who wrote the Twilight series had written Dead Poets Society and you have an idea about this one. If I heard “world historical” or “sclerotic” once more I was going to barf. DO NOT RECOMMEND.
The new girl at an elite boarding school falls in with the campus choir, an insular group wrapped around its untouchable, charismatic female lead. This is another "perfect, no, probably not; but so much my catnip that I don't care" book; like Social Creature seen slantwise, action toned down, feelings turned up, with the same toxic female friendships verging unsubtly into queer longing; and I did roll around in the hot mess of it, intoxicated and overjoyed. A book about wishing for transcendence; about toxic friendships, the near-pleasurable misery of unrequited queer attraction; melodramatic, funny, painfully self-aware, but more emotional than frenetic. I'm here for all of it; this is definite reread material.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
i will always love a fucked up gothic w weirdly obsessive women
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide attempt
I see what Burton is trying to do. She pits three different factions of belief--religious tradition, progressive reform, and commodification of the self that necessitates a chameleon belief in anything and everything by turns--against one another, with a wide-eyed pilgrim torn between them, all set against a boarding school backdrop and seasoned with the angst of Sapphic coming-of-age. But it doesn't work. This is a book that needed to slow down, get wordier, spend time building its characters and setting.
The thing about books that publishers claim to be The Secret History? No one writes like Donna Tartt but Donna Tartt. They write like they're working production in a factory, because capitalism turns culture into an assembly line. And The Secret History isn't going to roll off an assembly line.
The thing about books that publishers claim to be The Secret History? No one writes like Donna Tartt but Donna Tartt. They write like they're working production in a factory, because capitalism turns culture into an assembly line. And The Secret History isn't going to roll off an assembly line.