The Secret History - Donna Tartt

Richard is a wanderer who makes his way from California to Vermont for a chance to attend a school as far from his roots as he can and finds himself inadvertently involved in a new way of life. For him and his group of friends, their classics course is not just "schooling" but a way of life. Their obsession with the ancient and the sophisticated slowly begins to corrupts their morals and they slip further and further into evil.

So, this book has been on my TBR for years. Everyone seems to love this book or to hate it. Dark Academia is not really my cup of tea but I needed to form my own opinion of this book. I'm still torn over whether I liked it or not. It's hard to like a book where you loathe every character, but it's also hard to hate a book with such an interesting plot. So here we are, at an impasse. 

This book is shrouded in darkness, right from the beginning you know that there is a murder but it does little to prepare you for what this book has in store. It is quite long for the events that take place. There's a lot of inner monologue that, for it's excess, doesn't give much insight into our main characters true thoughts and feelings and leaves you feeling lost in the dark. Which I honestly think is the goal of the author. No matter what my thoughts are on this book I can't deny that it's writing is brilliant. It makes you think, deeply, about what's really right and wrong and what would you do if in similar situations.

The main thing this book made me do was question what morality really means. And how do we know when what we've done is immoral if we aren't un-biased in the act? If there is a "legitimate" reason to explain our actions?  Each character seems to brush off every event as if it's a minor inconvenience. It's not unless you pay attention to the words that you see the cracks running throughout. I questioned EVERYTHING in this book. How would I respond if I were in Richard's place? I'd like to think I'm a much better person but being put in situations that stretch your mental capacity beyond reasoning can change you. 

The characters, oh the characters... Each one is an enigma. All throughout the book I had a hard time nailing them down. The ones that at first seem to be innocent and shy turn out to be wild and uncontrolled. The ones that seem cold and calculating are actually just damaged and lost. The ones that seem joyful and outgoing are actually cruel and unyielding. And then, they aren't any of those things either. Like chameleons shedding their kinds. It was an interesting characterization and was one of the main points of this book that kept me hooked. 

Donna Tartt does an excellent job immersing you in her world of words. Yes, I found the work longer than it needed to be but that was part of the immersion. It's one of the few books where I haven't counted how many chapters were left until I was done. I felt so involved in this world yet by the end, felt as if I never learned anything about the characters or their lives. They stayed elusive and untamed. Wild, just like the book.

Definitely a good October read, I don't think I was as into it as I could have been if we'd been in the midst of Fall with the right aesthetic for this kind of tale. But I did enjoy it and I think I would read more of Tartt's work.