Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

1682 reviews

ashley_turch's review

challenging dark mysterious reflective 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

5.0

I wish every book I read was like this. Perfectly atmospheric, academic but not too difficult to understand, left enough to the imagination to leave you thinking about it for a long time afterward. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Cursing, Incest, and Car accident

Minor: Child abuse, Car accident, and Death of parent

Most trigger warnings apply. Warning for animal lovers: animal cruelty is mentioned and discussed by the characters — but we do not “see” it happen. Watch out around page ~230 (digital version — otherwise in Chapter 5 near the discussion of mushrooms) for the most heinous description, in my opinion. Easy to skip over the paragraph and pretend it didn’t happen, although it is very briefly referred to later in the book.

abeeni's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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 and Drug use

Minor: Animal death and Murder

be_emvi_ous's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death

violetdisposition's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious slow-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

4.25

This book started out pretty slow but there were enough odd details woven into the elaborately detailed yet rather mundane descriptions of daily life at a liberal arts college to keep me engaged - once things slowly started to reveal themselves, I was eager to see how all of the threads would come together. Even now, I think I would need to reread the book in order to truly capture all of the details and foreshadowing left in each scene. I don't know if I would say I particularly *liked* the main cast of characters - but they had such a charm to them that I was curious to know them better. The narrator is clearly unreliable, and even says so himself, which is my favorite type of narrator - we KNOW he is romanticizing his past and was even romanticizing it when he was living in the moment, and yet his narration is all we have with which to piece the true story together. I would be remiss to mention this book is (over)written with achingly pretentious and flowery language, but I am known to love this type of writing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Blood, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Drug use, Homophobia, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Violence, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Death of parent

meggyannpt's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Death, Suicide, and Murder

Minor: Homophobia

ezio_sev's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Alcohol

Moderate: Gun violence and Murder

Minor: Suicide attempt

hds's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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, Drug use, and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Rape

bored_and_confused's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Alcohol

Moderate: Bullying, Homophobia, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Blood, and Antisemitism

madisonjewellyoung's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense 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

4.25

📖🔎📝🩸🏫🚪⚖️🌲

A fascinating read, no doubt. The writing style was interesting and at times caught my attention completely while at other times lost me. Looking back on the book as a whole, however, I find to appreciate it more through and through.

The characters!!! That was what kept me reading from start to finish. Deeply intriguing to read a book from the perspective of someone who sees themselves as a side character of their own recounted experience. Leaning away from spoilers : here is each character depicted in emojis.

🪰🔎🥸🕳️🔒🚪
🦊🧱🚘🪩🍾💔
🐰💸🌫️🎙️👩🏼🫵🏻
🐻💵📜📚📞🪨
🐺👫🏼🥃⛓️‍💥🤝🏻💊
🦌🪽🩸🫧 🥀🤍
🐙💓💃🏻🪩🥂👋🏻

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Homophobia, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism

Minor: Incest

l4uraliest's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

Wayyyy too fucking long, could have been half the pages
Incredibly boring
chapters way too long

I liked the friendship ig, but Henry was the only thing that held them together, also both murders seem to be the only reason for the close friendship
Why is Camilla only a romantic interest? No real personality? Still ig my favourite character (Also Francis was fine)
Don‘t really get why Henry offed himself?? Why not let Charles take the fall for what he did? 
TF WAS WITH THE INCEST 
TF WAS WITH THE „I want to rape her“ i mean, what is wrong with you? why are you THIS obsessed???? 
So much romanticising: Henry with the murder, of each character basically -  Charles was my fave at first ???? HOW
- Julian was also fine but why doesn’t he have any friends his own age?? and why are his students his only personality?? 
why tf was the beginning SO LONG and the end so short?????
also WHY WAS BASICALLY HENRY THE ONLY ONE ON CAMILLAS SIDE AFTER CHARLES ABUSED HER

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Rape, Suicide, Violence, Antisemitism, Murder, and Toxic friendship