Secret history, Donna Tartt, does it get better?

[cheeseisthebest]

I feel like I should love it but struggling to get into it and wondered if it's worth persevering with?

I love it. Read it as a teen, reread it every few years. I think whether it gets ‘better’ sort of depends. The style is basically consistent throughout really, so if you aren’t getting on with it now it won’t change suddenly. But maybe it’s just not for you - is there anything in particular you don’t like about it?

@Edinburghmusing

That’s so true - I saw someone on TikTok refer to it as ‘just like If We Were Villains.’ Erm, it was written a billion years before and is the blueprint for all those types of books!

I think the same about Interview with the Vampire. At the time it must have been totally fresh and new, but now it’s been copied so much you feel like ‘oh a brooding vampire? Kind of a cliche.’

It's most enjoyable if you're in your teens/twenties. Gen Z love it.
Very Donna Tartt. Exquisite writing and fascinating characters. Curious anti climactic end.
Tedious and annoying if you're middle aged 😁 but still a great read.
Loved the Goldfinch but might describe it the same way.

I love this book so much, but I loved it from the start so yf you are not drawn in @cheeseisthebest and anyone else, maybe you won't be.

The Little Friend was a big disappoinment but I adored the Goldfinch, it's the best book I've read from this century.

Secret History caveat: I've not read it for years abd dd has stolen my copy so I might like it less. I read it when it came out, in the ? early 1990s.

...and dd has stolen my copy and annotated it heavily for her A level Eng NEA so I cannot now reread it; if I did I might like it less.

Sorry missed out a thought process there.

I will read almost anything, but I didn't like The Secret History at all.

So interesting how you feel about books can change-

I read (maybe when it came out?) in the 90's. I remember reading it at lunch and then hiding it under my desk at work so I could finish the chapter.

I loved it.

DD has now read recently and also loved it

The Goldfinch is amazing, I couldn’t put it down.

I agree that it’s a book for late teens early twenties when you would view the characters differently. As a middle aged woman it’s a book about thoroughly unlikeable self obsessed posh kids.

it’s well written though. I enjoyed it more than the Goldfinch. I like The Little Friend.

I don't mind it, it's just not engrossing me enough.

I think you have to be in your late teens/twenties to totally get it. I adored it then, not sure I would now.

I think in that case it’s hard to say it gets ‘better.’ I used to slog through books to say I’d finished them, and it led to me getting really fed up/resentful of reading. Now, if a book is rubbish or doesn’t engage me and I don’t have to read it for work/uni, I just toss it aside. There are too too many books on the world to waste time on own that I don’t find engaging. That’s my reading philosophy after A Little Life. Never again will I waste my time on reading a book because I feel I should!

I enjoyed it as well as The Goldfinch ( although that was too long).I read it in my 40’s. I think I would have loved it as a younger woman as I went to an American college and I do feel that was the best time of my life. I don’t go near any books by the Beat Generation though because I’m definitely too old to be impressed by those now

Yet I loved Prep which was similar setting?

I really enjoyed it. Was a slow burn at the beginning x

I read it as a student when it first came out, had no idea about the hype and adored it. Didn't know anyone else who had read it (I was studying science) and it was only 10 years later when The Little Friend was published that I discovered that it was a massively popular book.

DD1 has just got a 30 year anniversary edition for Christmas, all her friends are obsessed with dark academia.

PPs have nailed it. I am 46 & read this just as I started university. It spoke of a world we were then unfamiliar with but of course now has been trawled so much for content for books, films & TV.

The writing was ground breaking.

I loved it, couldn't put it down.

She was years writing her second book so developed a kind of mystique around her, added to by her style & personal demeanour. (I went to several book readings / public interviews with her).

As others say, other writers have gone there since but she was first.

I didn’t like it, or Goldfinch. And I’m a bookworm. Giving that author a big swerve in future.

Oh I loved Prep so much.
Different author of course but similar setting.

Yes I've loved all her books, have you read Eligible?

Well I've given up for now, reading the new Graham Norton book.

No I haven’t, is it good?

I read it and thought it was really well written, but my enjoyment was somewhat marred by failing to understand what actually happened in the key scene in the book. I had to Google it. Which is probably not ideal.

I loved it a lot, it's probably a top 10 most memorable book for me, but I did read it in my 20's and haven't reread it (am 40 now). There was some discussion on the 50 books thread about rereading spoiling your feelings about previously loved books, so it sounds like I'd better not reread this one! I struggled with The Goldfinch and put it to one side intending to go back to it at a later date - I still haven't, maybe I should. I found that it had little snippets of a few pages where it seemed to be getting really good and then it went off again, whereas The Secret History was amazing and gripping throughout.

I mean it won’t have to be a big swerve really - she’s only got one book left for you to avoid 😂