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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Secret History" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1167959950m/29044.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Secret History</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8719.Donna_Tartt">Donna Tartt</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/9432552?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>I've only just started this one, but being a sucker both for novels that are concerned with academia in some way--the fresh college grad at the center of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, or the astronomy students of The Path of Minor Planets, for instance--and with characters who strive to escape their humble beginnings and totally reinvent themselves a la Gatsby, this novel, having both of these elements, has captivated me in its early pages. (Not sure what these obsessions say about me, but I'll leave that for another time and place...)
<br/>-------------------
<br/>...And finally I have finished it. 
<br/>
<br/>I would say that this is one of the most beautifully written and enthralling books I've ever read. The characters are such oddballs and some of the things that happen are so strange that, trying to imagine any of it outside the context of Tartt's writing, it seems rather silly, but Tartt creates the New England college of Hampden and the people who populate it so gorgeously and vividly that it all seems very real while reading it. (Essential to this is the fact that the narrator, Richard, is something of an outsider to the core group and regards their eccentricities with as much bafflement as the reader probably will.) This book for me was not a pageturner--I was rarely anxious to find out exactly what was going to happen next--but rather it was almost hypnotic in its beauty, creating a world I enjoyed escaping into each time I opened the book. It helps that I have a soft spot for leafy college campuses and social outcasts.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/225991?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Carolyn's review
rating:

I've only just started this one, but being a sucker both for novels that are concerned with academia in some way--the fresh college grad at the center of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, or the astronomy students of The Path of Minor Planets, for instance--and with characters who strive to escape their humble beginnings and totally reinvent themselves a la Gatsby, this novel, having both of these elements, has captivated me in its early pages. (Not sure what these obsessions say about me, but I'll leave that for another time and place...)
-------------------
...And finally I have finished it.

I would say that this is one of the most beautifully written and enthralling books I've ever read. The characters are such oddballs and some of the things that happen are so strange that, trying to imagine any of it outside the context of Tartt's writing, it seems rather silly, but Tartt creates the New England college of Hampden and the people who populate it so gorgeously and vividly that it a...more

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message 1: by Jacob

12/28/2007 07:56AM

Very beautifully written review of a book that also sounds beautifully written. This is one that I will now have to pick up. You've got me sold on it. Your comments were the equivalent of offering me a delicious looking truffle and adding that it had been dipped in my favorite chocolate coating. I will not be able to resist a bite.