Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

1178 reviews

jenpurlteach's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, and Alcohol

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Murder

Minor: Incest, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

cryptofauna's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

um? idk how to feel. 
a bit overly literary and pretentious but i kind of feel like that was the point. meandering and dense as hell but also somehow very interesting and captivating. slow for a while at the beginning, and then alternates between very tense and thrilling and then back to slow for a while and then back. 
the characters were interesting and i was definitely drawn into the world for most of it but it was also just. really long? 
idk i feel like i struggle with more pretentious works because i feel like they don’t keep my attention as well, but i did read 90% of this in one day which is why i’m so conflicted. it clearly held my attention, and at some points i was excited to keep reading for sure but for a majority of it i was kind of continuing out of vague interest and also maybe because of sunk cost
some weird choices like

THE INCEST???? also felt like henry killing himself felt kind of random and out of the blue?? again may be intentional for it to feel weird i just don’t love it as the ending but idk what i would have preferred

it was good i guess but generally not for me is what i’m taking from this. i felt like i didn’t fully get it (??) and while i really liked some parts of it i came out feeling kind of ambivalent about spending like 6 hours on this book.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Islamophobia, Suicide attempt, Murder, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, and Death of parent

bugtickle's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.75

It is a slow burn, this isn’t going to be a fast read…but as it got closer to the end the more I couldn’t put it down.  I found myself thinking more and more about the characters… who was the ring leader? How did they go from one problem to the next and make the choices they did? The group or mob mentality was interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Homophobia, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Alcohol

bookishfabledfiction's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

itsbumley's review against another edition

mysterious reflective tense 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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Classism

Minor: Rape

shirumoon's review against another edition

dark 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

3.5

Never good to get into a book because of a hype I feel like because my expectations were way too high. I mean yeah, it was really well written (though I must say, I didn't read the original edition in English) but so incredibly dragged out. The story captivated me enough to finish it but it didn't touch me emotionally and the twists and turns of the plot didn't really hit. Honestly more mystery leaning thrillers just may not entirely be the right genre for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Vomit, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Homophobia, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

coralynski's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

eleasofia's review against another edition

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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Homophobia, Suicide, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

angel_kiiss's review against another edition

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. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Blood, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicide, Medical content, and Suicide attempt

jemimaesmee's review

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This was an absolute tome of a book. I have never required so much will-power to complete a read. I find it very difficult to rate because while it is intriguing, well written and unexpected, it is also drawn out and somewhat boring in places too. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Body horror, Incest, and Suicide attempt