Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Secret History

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

150 reviews

anneroza's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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abigailhaagen's review

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dark mysterious

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

Story was incredibly well-told, the characters very fleshed-out, and I was engrossed and read almost 400 pages in one day. However, it also romanticized a lot of unhealthy behaviors, which probably wasn't great for me mentally (no, Abigail, you can't return to college to study Ancient Greek while drinking bourbon and smoking cigars

and plotting murders

smh)

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avesmaria's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

Absorbing, intricate, incredibly good read. Tartt is a master craftsperson with words here.

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shelby327's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

The secret history is weird to reflect on because the characters and the plot are so terrible, and it is often very slow, but the read is so good and so worth your time. It’s overall extremely enjoyable and one of my favorite books that I have ever read. The writing is beautiful, and the plot is so beautifully produced that even though it is slow and at times repetitive, it’s still interesting to read. I look forward to reading more on Tart in the future.

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_david_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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

3.5

I somewhat enjoyed the book.

I liked the niche approach of student choice: the outgoing introverted dark academia type of students of classic languages. This is a group which I can recognise in fellow students from my high school days, who coincidentally also studied classic languages.

The plot is interesting to me. It's a very believable story of a group of people who make very bad choices which seem the easiest to them in the moment, but which have long lasting consequences.

One thing I wish the story improved is character depth. The main character and Henry are interesting. Bunny is interesting but not very rounded. But Charles, Camilla and Francis are underdeveloped eventhough they were part of the main cast of characters. The main character's crush on Camilla also made my eyes roll. It was very over the top and often distracted from whatever she was doing. Her appearance got mentioned waaaaay too often. I'd rather have known more about her personality.

Somewhere around the halfway point the story becomes very slow. You might have to push through long paragraphs about seemingly unimportant details. There shouldn't have been much more of it or I would've dropped the book. Speaking of Tartt's writing style: either do not mind having to look up words or be accepting of only understanding the general gist of a word/foreign sentence and moving on.

The ending was very satisfying to me. The effect of the events in the story are different per character. I found this very interesting to read about. Something clicked when the main character described that the main cast is a group of naturally insecure people who have been taught to feel superior instead. This explains a lot of the behaviour shown.

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