A review by breadkingbread
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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

Okay, so, how do i even start? Obviously it is very compelling and i thought the characters were interesting, and other than a few hiccups (some weird lines, the whole, uhm, (spoilers), siblings thing) also very *human*. I enjoyed reading about their "shenanigans". Also, at the same time, i definitely hear people when they say that (paraphrasing from memory here) it is a book *pretending* to be very smart and academic by using big words, but it's not holding up when you actually start to look into it. I did get that, too. Despite that i get what she was going for and she does to it pretty well, mostly, despite some smaller gripes i had with it while reading.

Also a smaller spoiler but the whole "Isram" thing feels incredibly out of place. Like this book references real life cultures and bigotry so many times but she felt the need to create a whole new place which is obviously just there as a stand-in for like any "Arab" country? Just feels like it was made specifically so that these short parts of the book had a sort of fictionalized cloak on them while leaving everything else largely realistic (in terms of cultures) for reasons unknown to me.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings