Kendra's review of The Secret History
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Despite its pretentiousness, I really enjoyed this book. While reading it, my biggest criticism was that you won't actually find college students -- no matter how rich or strange -- who talk or dress or act like these students (at tiny, fictional Hampden College in Vermont) do. Wearing suits on a daily basis? Wearing pince-nez, for god's sake?? After seeing the author's picture and reading her interview at the back of the book, I have to revise that criticism a bit and concede that, just perhaps, she is really and truly every bit as condescending and aloof and strange as the characters she created. And she started writing the book while in college, so...
Anyway, you'll want to read this book in the fall or winter. Early spring at the absolute latest. It's not a light summer read, by any means. There's a crime (or several), a cover-up (or two), and a sense that perhaps the author (and her characters) ought to have lived in a different century. I'll tell you what you'l...more
Anyway, you'll want to read this book in the fall or winter. Early spring at the absolute latest. It's not a light summer read, by any means. There's a crime (or several), a cover-up (or two), and a sense that perhaps the author (and her characters) ought to have lived in a different century. I'll tell you what you'l...more
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