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A review by kijatai
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book got me out of a reading slump of a few years. You know when you used to read all the time as a teenager and then you became an adult and don’t anymore? That was my situation.
I started being interested in the Dark Academia trend. I wanted to explore why it became so popular and I always liked a university setting in my stories. I was intrigued also of how classism could be represented in these kind of stories.
So I bought this book because it was referred as kind of the blue print of dark academia books and I started reading.
From the start, I knew I wouldn’t like the main character. But I liked exploring his mind. I love an imperfect, or just unlovable, character. Makes things interesting. He’s definitely an unreliable narrator. This is also a slow paced book so I took my time taking in all the descriptions of the surroundings and characters but as well of the mental charge and guilt that a murder can have on someone. (No spoiler there. It literally begins with the mention of the murder and we already know who died and who killed.)
Overall, I really enjoyed taking my time reading this book. I definitely want to read it a second time to interpret the story with the knowledge of what happens later on and catch some things I might have missed. It’s also beautifully written. English is my second language and Donna Tartt’s writing made me want to read even more books in English.
Sure there is a time towards the end of the story that it starts getting a little long. Like why are we still continuing the story? But what I realized was that it was not about the murder and the suspense. It was, at least for me, about how it affects the characters in the story. The guilt, the denial, the toxicity… It’s definitely a character driven story that explores friendships.
I started being interested in the Dark Academia trend. I wanted to explore why it became so popular and I always liked a university setting in my stories. I was intrigued also of how classism could be represented in these kind of stories.
So I bought this book because it was referred as kind of the blue print of dark academia books and I started reading.
From the start, I knew I wouldn’t like the main character. But I liked exploring his mind. I love an imperfect, or just unlovable, character. Makes things interesting. He’s definitely an unreliable narrator. This is also a slow paced book so I took my time taking in all the descriptions of the surroundings and characters but as well of the mental charge and guilt that a murder can have on someone. (No spoiler there. It literally begins with the mention of the murder and we already know who died and who killed.)
Overall, I really enjoyed taking my time reading this book. I definitely want to read it a second time to interpret the story with the knowledge of what happens later on and catch some things I might have missed. It’s also beautifully written. English is my second language and Donna Tartt’s writing made me want to read even more books in English.
Sure there is a time towards the end of the story that it starts getting a little long. Like why are we still continuing the story? But what I realized was that it was not about the murder and the suspense. It was, at least for me, about how it affects the characters in the story. The guilt, the denial, the toxicity… It’s definitely a character driven story that explores friendships.