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lynxpardinus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Physical abuse, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicide attempt, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Eating disorder, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Cancer, Incest, Transphobia, and Fire/Fire injury
Further warning for a student/teacher relationship - never framed as a bad thing as far as I can tell.me_opcional's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Incest, and Violence
artemisg's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
This book fluctuated between 2 and 3 stars like nobody’s business. Overall, I’m giving it a 3 purely because of the last line, but this book was overwhelmingly average and, frankly, disappointing.
I heard that this was essentially The Secret History fanfiction, and because I love both The Secret History and fanfiction, I assumed I would enjoy this. Alas, I did not. It was less fanfiction and more a blatant rip-off, with all of the insufferability of the characters from The Secret History and none of the nuance and beauty. Speaking of nuance and beauty, this book tried entirely too hard to have quotable, beautiful lines of prose. It felt like the beautiful prose was being saved for the final line of every chapter. I understand wanting to leave each chapter on a powerful note, but it felt out of place and inconsistent. I will admit that some of the lines were well-written, but their inconsistent nature meant that it felt like Rio was trying way too hard, which made me cringe and took me out of the story. It was hard to fully immerse myself when the writing was choppy and the pacing was weird.
This book follows Oliver, a man who has just been released from prison for a murder he may or may not have committed or been complicit in. He tells the story of the events leading up to the death and the fallout after it. The story centres around an incestuous group of theatre kids (aren’t they all a little bit incestuous) at a prestigious arts college (read: cult). The narrative style is nice, with each Act starting with a present-day prologue and diving into the college years. Oliver is an unreliable but kind of lovable narrator and also a Mary Sue. He’s just so nice and perfect, and everyone wants to protect him and also have sex with him, but he doesn’t see himself like that, blah blah. Plot-wise, this is a less exciting Secret History, setting-wise, a more unrealistic Secret History, and character-wise, you guessed it, a worse Secret History.
The characters all felt like one-dimensional archetypes, and Oliver mentions this, which is nice. We love self-awareness. But, we have enough pages in this book to give each character more than two personality traits, but Rio doesn’t. Additionally, the archetypes were kind of gross and misogynistic, Meredith deserved more, and she especially deserved not to be slut-shamed by her own friends? Wren deserved a personality outside of her relationships with the men in the book (also ew at the implied incest from Richard). And Filippa deserved to have a personality other than ‘extremely mysterious’ and 'someone no one pays attention to'. I also didn’t like that the one canonically gay character (at that point) was the one who was the most ok with what was essentially murder. Also, there is no growth. (As an aside, I had a giggle over Frederick literally being a cheap Julian rip-off. He even takes his classes in an intimate gallery and makes everyone drink tea lmao Rio didn't even try to make her imitation subtle).
Overall, this book was fine. Some parts were fun and funny, and the final line is *chefs kiss*, but other parts made me angry and uncomfortable (and not in an intentional confronting way, in a “this book is badly written and these characters suck way”). Maybe I had too high hopes for this book, and when it turned out to be average, I was personally offended, or maybe this book is just genuinely not great.
I heard that this was essentially The Secret History fanfiction, and because I love both The Secret History and fanfiction, I assumed I would enjoy this. Alas, I did not. It was less fanfiction and more a blatant rip-off, with all of the insufferability of the characters from The Secret History and none of the nuance and beauty. Speaking of nuance and beauty, this book tried entirely too hard to have quotable, beautiful lines of prose. It felt like the beautiful prose was being saved for the final line of every chapter. I understand wanting to leave each chapter on a powerful note, but it felt out of place and inconsistent. I will admit that some of the lines were well-written, but their inconsistent nature meant that it felt like Rio was trying way too hard, which made me cringe and took me out of the story. It was hard to fully immerse myself when the writing was choppy and the pacing was weird.
This book follows Oliver, a man who has just been released from prison for a murder he may or may not have committed or been complicit in. He tells the story of the events leading up to the death and the fallout after it. The story centres around an incestuous group of theatre kids (aren’t they all a little bit incestuous) at a prestigious arts college (read: cult). The narrative style is nice, with each Act starting with a present-day prologue and diving into the college years. Oliver is an unreliable but kind of lovable narrator and also a Mary Sue. He’s just so nice and perfect, and everyone wants to protect him and also have sex with him, but he doesn’t see himself like that, blah blah. Plot-wise, this is a less exciting Secret History, setting-wise, a more unrealistic Secret History, and character-wise, you guessed it, a worse Secret History.
The characters all felt like one-dimensional archetypes, and Oliver mentions this, which is nice. We love self-awareness. But, we have enough pages in this book to give each character more than two personality traits, but Rio doesn’t. Additionally, the archetypes were kind of gross and misogynistic, Meredith deserved more, and she especially deserved not to be slut-shamed by her own friends? Wren deserved a personality outside of her relationships with the men in the book (also ew at the implied incest from Richard). And Filippa deserved to have a personality other than ‘extremely mysterious’ and 'someone no one pays attention to'. I also didn’t like that the one canonically gay character (at that point) was the one who was the most ok with what was essentially murder. Also, there is no growth. (As an aside, I had a giggle over Frederick literally being a cheap Julian rip-off. He even takes his classes in an intimate gallery and makes everyone drink tea lmao Rio didn't even try to make her imitation subtle).
Overall, this book was fine. Some parts were fun and funny, and the final line is *chefs kiss*, but other parts made me angry and uncomfortable (and not in an intentional confronting way, in a “this book is badly written and these characters suck way”). Maybe I had too high hopes for this book, and when it turned out to be average, I was personally offended, or maybe this book is just genuinely not great.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Drug use
Minor: Drug abuse, Incest, and Sexism