Secret History by Donna Tartt. Suitable for teen?

A very good book, I read it many years ago. I'm sure it is fine for a teenager but do people police the books that teens read? I never did though we talked about books, I was an avid reader; my parents didn't with me (but they were not interested). I'm 73 and read 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' at 12. I left it lying around too and parents never even picked it up and looked (they were good in other ways)!

Donna Tartt's next book was, in my opinion, not so good and I was disappointed.

😂@pigalow27 . Although I have to ask, how do feel about goldfish?

I really loathed it as well, I would never want to touch or read it again.

Well I mean I wouldn’t want my 11 year old reading Naked Lunch. I think a young teen reading something like Palahniuk or American Psycho might not pick up the subtext and see the characters as ‘cool’ or get the wrong ideas. So I guess I think certain books need to have a level of understanding to appreciate them rather than be disturbed/upset/confused and take the wrong message away.

Not that I think it particularly applies to The Secret History, although I do think if young teen means 13 year old they’re unlikely to really comprehend it and are more likely to romanticise it. But I don’t think it’s damaging with this particular novel.

I'm always unsure what effects reading supposedly unsuitable books are meant to have! Is it like the moral panic surrounding video games encouraging violent behaviour irl? Having read 'Lace' at the age of 13 I can happily report that I haven't spent my adult life storming into rooms shouting 'Which one of you butches is my mother?' No ill effects at all!

God no it’s awful! Slow and ploddy and pretentious. I was gutted as had wanted to read it for ages and I hated it! So many better books out there!

I absolutely loved The Secret History but DNF The Goldfinch. I have always intended to go back to it, but it hasn't happened yet - I loved the intelligence and the growing sense of malice in The Secret History and The Goldfinch didn't have the same appeal - it was a bit boring. I do find that I need to be in the right headspace to read a very long book (ADHD), so it may just have been that and I will enjoy it when I eventually go back. I have never been tempted to read The Little Friend!

I read all her books in the order they were published, I can hardly remember the middle one, weirdly.
I loved The Goldfinch, even though it was slightly less engaging after a certain point.

@SirVixofVixHall what order did you read them in? I read The Goldfinch when it was first published. For some reason I'd never read The Secret History, but knew it's reputation and leapt on it after enjoying The Goldfinch so much. I was so underwhelmed! But I wonder if that's because in the intervening years its been appropriated by other novelists, so if just didn't seem that innovative or special 20 years on.

I am with you. I enjoyed The Goldfinch much more. The Secret History didn’t engage me much as I didn’t like any of the characters.

Yes the Flowers in the Attic series was so awful and incredibly unhealthy for all of us young teens to read at an impressionable age.

I just remembered I have a first edition of it, dust sleeve and all! I wonder if it'd be worth anything?

I think this is true. I threw American Psycho into the bin as soon as my dc started to randomly pick things up off our shelves.

I'm on the fence - my dd is 13 and I think she'd be ok, but I am not completely sure - I think I'd wait another year.

I think if a teen is a reader it’s very hard to police what they read. That was my parents experience!

I bloody LOVE this book! Def okay for 15+. Haven't thought about Flowers in the Attic for years, I must have read it in my early teens - so gross 🤢

I think it's fine for a teen in terms of content. I was a bit underwhelmed by it, but then I'm in a very small minority who much preferred The Goldfinch!

I borrowed it from my Mum and read it when it came out so at about 14/15. The characters are young adults not much older than that so it’s bound to appeal. I reread it when I was older and got something different out of it. It’s a book that stands up well to rereading anyway.

Me too. I had wondered if I was the only one who totally hated it. So pleased I’m not on my own with that.

It was one of the books sent in a monthly subscription to my daughter from the amazing Mr B's Emporium in Bath. She was 17 at the time so, older teen. She loved it.

When you say ‘young teen’ how young is it? It’s popular with ‘dark academia’ fans, but I find a lot of the teens in that community seem to miss that it’s an affectionately critical satire of people exactly like those who are into things like dark academia.

I would let her have a go. The very worst that will happen is she’ll become insufferably pretentious, and most teens go through that anyway. It’s one of my favourites, fun to read and you always get something new from it when you go back to it, but I read it very differently now compared to when I was 15.

Oh thank God,another person who hated it, I LOATHED it unlike every one on MN it seems!!!

I think you would need to be old enough to appreciate it fully. It would be a shame to read it too soon I think, DS read it at about 17/18 and loved it.

I love it, but I'd say at least 15.

DD (15) wants to read it but hasn't yet. It's the 30th anniversary and is having a resurgence due to 'When we were Villains' which borrows heavily from it.

It's a lot better than Flowers in the Atticor Lace that I was reading as an early teen. Probably one of my favourite books that I read in my 20s.