The Secret History in Pop Sugar's Annual Ultimate Reading Challenge

Jul 08, 2008 Beth F rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2008, mystery, 1001-books, best-book-i-read-that-year, favorites

This book was incredible. I borrowed it from the library but plan to buy it the next time I come across a good used copy at the bookstore because I would absolutely reread it. The main characters are a small group of college students who study the Classics (Ancient Greek) at a small college in rural Vermont. They are hiding a terrible secret and in the prologue, they murder one member in their group of friends in order to keep the secret a secret. The murder of their friend is not a spoiler, but ...more

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Feb 04, 2020 Elaine rated it really liked it

Shelves: miscellaneous-fiction

I hated Crime and Punishment. I usually can't get into books with antiheroes at the center. College students getting drunk and high all the time repulse me. But for some reason, I couldn't get this one off my mind, even when I left it in the living room and went up to bed. I hated everyone by the end, really, but for some reason I found myself rooting for Richard and Francis to somehow end up together, and I wanted Charles to be alright. I hated Camilla and I have no idea why Richard is so obses ...more

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Jul 10, 2014 Philitsa rated it really liked it

Morbid. Gruesome. Uncomfortable. That's the best way I can describe this book. Almost every class of morbidity you can imagine is in this book. I feel like if I say anything else, I'll give away spoilers.

The book starts off with a bang in the prologue - HUGE SPOILER built right in. And then the pace drops off considerably while we get the back story of the main character. The difference between the two made me wonder if I perhaps picked up a new book by accident. I had to go back and check.

The p ...more

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Mar 27, 2019 Sadie Ruin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019

I don’t need to like the characters in a book, which is good for this book because I disliked all of them. I felt that from the blurb there should have been more Julian, I think Tart was trying to do the absent omnipresent similar to the Dracula’s character but it didn’t work that way for me.
The actual core group of friends behave in ways that seem so foreign I have a hard time believing them. I don’t think similar experiences to my own are required for believability, but they’re stretched a bi ...more

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Mar 28, 2008 Rae rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

An amazing psychological page-turner. It's an uncommon mystery in that the reader knows who committed the crime from the beginning. The novel combines elements from Lord of the Flies and the Leopold/Loeb murders. It's a dark mystery that is very well-written. ...more

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