Review | The Secret History

The Book: The Secret History by Donna Tart

Date Published: April 13, 2004

Dates Read: April 9-20, 2019

Current Goodreads Rating: 4.09/5

It's been a little while since I've read a PopSugar Challenge book! In this installment, our book was supposed to be set on a college campus and this was probably the most college-y book we could have picked. I don't mean like the story was full of shallow sorority sisters and fraternity brothers trying to find love when, in reality, they should just be focusing on passing their next statistics test. No, this book was more 'I come from money so I'm going to major in whatever I want and wear fancy vests with watches on chains' kind of college.

Beware: some slight spoilers ahead

The Story: The Secret History follows Richard, a young man unsure of his place in the world, as he leaves his uninterested parents behind in California to study at a small elite university in New England. Somehow he manages to integrate himself into the small and selective group of the Greek students. Henry, the ringleader; Francis, the homeowner (we'll get to that in a second); Camilla and Charles, the twins; and Edward (Bunny to his friends), who might honestly be somewhat illiterate. In one of the weirdest weekends I've ever heard of, the Greek kids (sans Richard and Bunny) take a mini-vacation to Francis' house in the country where they get high off their minds and murder a man.

Bunny, angry at being left out of anything, is suspicious and eventually discovers their secret. After a brief bought of blackmail, the Greek kids take matters into their own hands and push him off a cliff. All of that is just within the first 150 pages or so.

Bennington College is the university Tartt attended between 1982 and 86. Hampden College is based on it.

My Thoughts: I want to start off by saying that I really enjoyed this book, but man was it melancholy. Every character moved through this depressive fog and the entire novel just felt so sad. Richard had difficulties connecting with anyone in the novel, whether that be one of the Greek kids or a normal kid in his dorm. Every time I put the book down I had to take a deep breath and realize that the sun was shining outside and it was almost 90 degrees out. After reading Secret History I felt like everything should be dark, gloomy, and rainy.

I think I found this book particularly interesting because, though the kids did feel guilty for having to murder Bunny, they didn't feel too guilty. In fact, it was more that they felt guilty that they were caught. I really wanted to connect to each character, but that lack of remorse and the intense self-preservation held me back from liking them completely. Even Richard, poor, clueless Richard, wasn't completely likable.

Maybe that's what makes the book so enticing. You have two sides to a conflict, Bunny vs. The Other Greek Kids, and neither of them have super compelling reasons to like them. On the surface the audience might think they need to be on Bunny's side. After all, he's the one who can serve justice and solve a mystery even the cops aren't ready to solve. However, Bunny isn't appalled at the murder, he's appalled at the fact that he wasn't invited and uses this blackmail to take advantage of his so called friends. So then the audience thinks they should side with Henry, Charles, Camilla, and Frederick. But these kids committed murder twice. They would rather kill one of their own instead of go to prison and, afterwards, they were barely remorseful

Sometimes I truly felt for Richard because he just seemed so listless and clueless in life. He barely connected with these people, but he was willing to help them cover up Bunny's murder. Even at the end, after everything started to crumble, he was there trying to help. Maybe it was because he was pining for Camilla, someone who did not want him back, or maybe it was because he was desperate for a place where someone actually wanted to be with him (his parents were kind of trash let's be real), but he could easily have walked away and lived a normal life. Instead he's taken along for the ride and is not really in any better standing afterwards.

Long Story Short:

• Does anyone else find it weird that the creepy twins are named Charles and Camilla?

• Maybe don't commit murder? Especially don't murder one of your friends.

• Let's stick with studying and normal 20-year old things, mkay?

My Rating: 4/5

Up Next: Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick