Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

2079 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.

shewritesthings's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Murder

mesposito827's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-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

Finishing this book feels like an exorcism. I was possessed by the characters, by the story, by the world of the book, by the prose itself and then I closed the book and was back in my body again. I never wanted to put this book down. The characters are all diabolical in their own ways, but are SO compelling. Richard’s narration so cleverly obscures the true nature of the plot that about halfway through the book I was fully convinced that their behavior was justified. And then I shook my head like a god damn etch a sketch and thought ‘what the fuck am I even thinking??’ It feels like irony that this book has become a kind of ‘dark academia’ ideal because the fact that the characters are rich academics at a liberal arts college in New England, who write in fountain pen and smoke cigarettes and write their diaries in Latin, is the exact thing that allows them to get away with everything they do.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Homophobia, Incest, Racism, and Antisemitism

caitlink's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.75

My favorite part of this book has to be the multiple language usage throughout the book. It is not that often but I really loved it. Especially if it was a language I was learning and I was actually able to understand it.

I can verify about the thing about thinking in different languages that supposed to slow down your thoughts or keep them from going wild. At least in my experience that is true. Honestly that is some good advice. I would say that if you take anything away from that book, it should be or one of them should  be to think in a different language when you're worried.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Violence, Xenophobia, and Murder

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

viktoriawithakreadsbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious reflective tense slow-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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Rape, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Antisemitism, Murder, and Outing

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