A review by violetdisposition
The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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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