fiendfull 's review for:

The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton

4.5

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This was what I hoped from it, mostly: pretentious boarding school students obsessed with a dead writer who it turns out fought on the fascist side in the Spanish Civil War, lots of obsession and that belief that everyone cares about your drama when nobody really does (like The Secret History), pseudo-philosophical ideals that cause the students to do things to match up to them, etc. It says some interesting things about dark academia through the characters and what they do, but also gives all the major expected dark academia elements.

I raced through it and had a fun time. I liked how it explored queerness, especially teenage experiences, but I do wish on reflection there was a bit more delving into that aspect and how it related to the characters' other ideals/experiences/senses of the future. Still, it really was what I wanted to read, as someone who is quite picky with books trying to be The Secret History.