Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

807 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.

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

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

psychedelics's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Toxic friendship

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

ellie_dirthag's review against another edition

dark reflective 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

2.75

That was so many pages for all that? Girl... Like I think I understand what the author's point was and what she was trying to accomplish, and she did it well, I just didn't find it interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Incest, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, and Rape

The triggers make this sound like such a more interesting book than it was

fifiaffie1's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Suicide, Grief, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Murder

Minor: Drug use, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

madsreadsbooks17's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Incest, Suicide, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Violence

Minor: Gore, Misogyny, and Panic attacks/disorders