Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

311 reviews

librerin's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.25

~ the intrigue ~
It was a really compelling story where I never really knew how it would end. However, I didn't always buy the characters or their actions. I wish there had been more time given to flushing out their relationships (part of the lack seems to have been intentional to add to the air of mystery, but sometimes that made the reveals feel underwhelming or undeserved). A neat aesthetic trek into dark academia, but with all its flaws too (whiteness, elitism, wealth).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Incest, Homophobia, Classism, and Self harm

norabeideineroma's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Misogyny, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Grief, Blood, Animal death, Biphobia, Car accident, Drug use, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Murder, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Classism, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Cursing, Mental illness, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Homophobia, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

nclovelock's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Racial slurs, Murder, Suicide, Drug use, Alcohol, Addiction, Blood, Gaslighting, Grief, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

jakirby's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Car accident, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Violence, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Grief, Self harm, Death, Incest, Mental illness, and Drug abuse

joslyn_cole's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, Murder, Mental illness, Self harm, Drug abuse, Addiction, Violence, Gun violence, Death, and Alcoholism

deparme's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Alcoholism, Suicide, Addiction, and Murder

Moderate: Self harm, Grief, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, and Mental illness

Minor: Homophobia, Cursing, Drug use, Eating disorder, Toxic friendship, Antisemitism, Chronic illness, Misogyny, and Blood

mcosmic's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Murder, and Addiction

Moderate: Incest, Blood, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Drug abuse, Self harm, and Sexism

tashiface's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Grief, Incest, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Racism, Murder, Death, Drug use, Self harm, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Alcoholism

schwambibambi's review

dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• 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: Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Violence, Gun violence, Murder, Drug use, Antisemitism, Death, Drug abuse, Incest, Homophobia, Self harm, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Misogyny, and Addiction

avokaitotoast's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective 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

5.0

Short Review (TL;DR):

• Extra fun read it you have even the most basic knowledge of greek philosophy or tragedies
• Made me think way too much of my old literature professors (can’t tell you if that’s in a good way or bad way, i have no idea)
• really fucking good.

Long Review:

I could see how this might be a boring read for some. It’s slow, it’s not incredibly thrilling, it’s fairly predictable — and yet it’s incredibly thought provoking. It’s philosophical at the end of the day, rather than a riveting thriller. To me this book felt like if the concept of an epic poem or philosophical allegory had been applied to 20th century prose.

The characters are unlikeable, flawed to an extreme, and lack a sense of uniqueness that many of us look for in modern literature. They are very much caricatures of the over enthusiastic literature student — rejecting modernity, drinking whiskey, smoking excessive amounts of cigarettes. However, I think that works in its favor. These characters are so incredibly out of touch with the world, so isolated, and in turn are out of touch with themselves and their own morality.

There is a tension between the characters — in the first half — that mimics the academic rivalary between philosophical schools of thought: the stoic versus the epicuric, with the skeptic observing. The constant fight for what they think is higher knowledge (but in reality is a hopeless grapple for control and validation) turns catastrophic and it becomes a tale of shattering perspectives, crumbling realities, and the ever-present philosophical question of “what is good? and what is evil?”.

You don’t have to have interest or knowledge of greek philosophy to enjoy this at all (mine is Super Basic at best), however there’s a lot of really cool elements of classic greek philosophies and tragedies to be enjoyed if you do. I also really enjoyed how, despite being a chaos of greek stories, the entire story ends up almost Machiavellian in nature. 

I honestly can’t wait to re-read this and analyse it more throughly. I think it will be fun to re-read some greek tragedies first though, for sure.

I’m also just rambling at this point. I quite literally just finished and trying to get out everything Ive thought while reading this succinctly is apparently impossible. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism

Moderate: Violence, Suicide, Gun violence, Drug use, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Antisemitism, and Incest

• 1 character is just a fucking asshole and hates literally everyone but straight white males • incest is non graphic, and really only mentioned a few times — not a major plot point at all