The Secret History in Reading with Style

Nov 15, 2007 Joanna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, 1001, 2014-read, rws-2014-fall

I should have read the hard copy rather than listen to the author narrate this book. She was a terrible choice for narrator - her slightly southern, female voice was completely wrong for the first-person narration of this book.

Aside from the narration quality, I really enjoyed the book. The pacing was excellent and the characters were sufficiently interesting to hold my attention throughout a long book. I liked this so much better than The Goldfinch. The characters are pretentious, hateful, snob ...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, late-20th-century, women, new-england

Well, I'm disappointed to say the least. This was a great read up until somewhere just after the halfway point. At that point the author seemingly had little more story left in her. There was a dramatic moment perhaps 50 pages from the end. By that time, however, I was so tired of drugs and booze and hand-wringing that I didn't much care. I don't find "I took some sleeping pills and went to the movies" interesting.

There were inconsistencies throughout. Having never been to Vermont, I suspect I s ...more

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Aug 09, 2008 Jenger rated it liked it

Shelves: books-i-own

This book left me feeling a bit wigged out. I'm not really sure why but it did. Perhaps it was a little too dark for my tastes and that's why I didn't rate it as a 4. Let's just say it was a 3.5. Anyway, I still found it intriguing and passed it on to a neighbor. I don't think it's a book for everyone but a compelling read. What was most compelling about the book was the scholarly environment and interactions between the unique characters. Each character was definitely well-developed and I had d ...more

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Aug 13, 2008 Mary Beth rated it liked it

If you took classical language courses in college, this is a nice little reminder of what not to do. As one of my professors always said, "Murder is not reason enough to lose tenure." Yet, my first Greek professor, Father Maconi, encouraged us to read this novel before starting Greek. Go figure! ...more

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Feb 26, 2018 Deedee marked it as to-read

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, twins, bbc-book-list-top-100, boarding-school, year-1992, rws-best-20th-century, srcs-spring-members-choices, srcs-fall-members-choices, author-age-30-yrs-and-under, guardian-list-unread

TWINS "And then there were a pair, boy and girl. I saw them together a great deal, and at first I thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend, until one day I saw them up close and realized they had to be siblings. Later I learned they were twins." ...more

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