The Secret History - Donna Tartt

⭐ 8.5/10

I strayed from my usual genre again, this time because I was going on vacation and wanted something a bit quicker and self contained. I heard about this book on a movie podcast, where one of the hosts called this the best book of the century! She was a classics major, so how could I not trust a recommendation like that?  Well, turns out this book is written by someone who was also a classics major, and is about a group of students who are studying classics, and paints them as mysterious tortured geniuses. Their professor is is demanding and eccentric but also loving in his own way, and I was instantly picking up some Dead Poet's Society vibes.  I didn't like where it was heading, but it didn't take long for the book to abandon this romanticized academia and spiral into something much more dark.

The book starts by telling you there is a murder, who was murdered, and who did it.  The first half of the book follows our POV student who joins this elite class, becomes friends with this small group, and everything that leads to the murder. The second half of the book is the aftermath, and while I found the first half engaging in a way I haven't felt in a long time the second half became a bit of a slog. I could barely put the book down for the first half, and knowing where it was heading somehow made it even more exciting.  But the second half is filled with small arcs that seem tangential, filled with drinking and smoking and lying and depression and all the characters barely holding it together.

One thing that really bothered me was the amount of drinking and smoking these characters do.  I went to University - do students really live like this?  Maybe at different schools, and I knew some kids in high school that seemingly lived like this, but the constant state of excess the core characters live with seems impossible.  Oh, and most of them are incredibly rich and can buy and do anything they want.  Just a world I had a hard time believing, and kept bringing me back to the idea that this is some dark fantasy of the author's, how she imagined herself, so intelligent but constantly fighting demons no one else could possibly understand.

The main cast is really well fleshed out, and I felt a connection to each of the 6 students. They are constantly lying to each other or withholding information in a way that is really annoying but helps ratchet up the tension.  I felt myself questioning everyone's motives and not believing anything anyone said.  I haven't been this hooked in a very long time, it was just too bad that I was ready for it to be over by the end. Overall I thought this was an excellent book, a worthwhile foray out of my comfort zone.