Let's Bust a Recap : The Secret History

Booooooo. I can't. This one's a big fat "no" from me. If I was the type of person who could just quit a book without losing sleep over it, I never would have made it through this one. Like, once Bunny was actually dead, I could not stay interested. Are any of y'all fans of Psych? Do you know the episode "Black and Tan: A Crime of Fashion" (S2, E15)? This entire book was like when they're interrogating that one model and he's just all, "It was yellow. And boring. I don't know...just write down that it was lame." Like, that could be my entire review. 

I know, I know. I can already hear all the Donna Tartt stans coming for me to tell me how much I didn't get this book. Go ahead, knock yourselves out. I'm already on my way to the nearest Little Free Library to leave my copy inside for you. 

But to give you just a little more than my obvious distaste for what many of my peers have deemed a modern classic: The Secret History was Donna Tartt's debut novel back in 1992, and it is now considered to be the mother of the niche sub-genre dark academia. It's basically about a tight clique of snobby Classics students and their weirdo professor at a preppy New England college in Vermont. We learn in the prologue that the entire book will be our main protagonist's reminiscences about the time he and his four pretentious classmates killed their other pal when he got too annoying after not being able to cope with the fact of an earlier murder the others had committed. 

Seriously, the whole book is just Richard whinging on about the New England foliage and how the others hold their cigarettes and every single thing he ate, and when we finally get to the actual murder the inevitable downward spiral of everyone involved was just a whole mess of these whiney rich kids getting absolutely plastered and self-destructing. 

To boil it down to one sentence: five unbelievably entitled kids kill their so-called friend in cold blood and technically get away with it but—surprise!—it ruins their lives. 

In 559 pages. 

There were a few insightful moments sprinkled throughout the book, but on the whole I didn't think the writing was as great as everyone says it is, and I just didn't care about any of the characters. Their pedantic worldview and resulting behavior disgusted me, and I ended up dragging myself through the second half of the book trying to get it over with. What a slog. 

Cannot recommend, would not read again. It's two thumbs down from me. Have at it if you will, but don't come crying to me when you realize it's been a giant waste of your time. I tried to warn you.