Look, I get it—Tartt wanted to craft a group of fascinating, intellectually superior misfits, but they ended up being insufferable instead. Henry is meant to be a genius, but he mostly comes across as an overdramatic sociopath with an umbrella fetish. Bunny is a loud, obnoxious caricature, which makes it all the more baffling that the group waits so long to get rid of him. Charles and Camilla are supposed to be alluringly mysterious, but their weirdly incestuous dynamic is never fully explored, leaving it as nothing more than a disturbing footnote. Julian is treated like some divine scholar, yet he barely does anything, and his exit from the story is laughably abrupt. And then there’s Richard—the supposed protagonist—who has all the personality of an unbuttered slice of toast.

Tartt absolutely nails the vibe of Hampden College—moody autumns, dark academia aesthetics, snow-covered bodies in the woods—but the problem is that she gets lost in it. Instead of using the setting to enhance the story, she drowns the narrative in endless, repetitive descriptions of candlelit study sessions and whiskey-fueled existential crises. It’s gorgeous at first, but after 500+ pages of brooding in tweed, it starts to feel like you’re stuck in a Pinterest board for pretentious liberal arts students.

Tartt’s prose is undeniably beautiful, but at what cost? She spends entire paragraphs describing a single glance across a dimly lit room while the plot crawls forward at a glacial pace. There’s an overwhelming sense that she knows how good she is at writing, and she wants you to know it, too—every overwritten sentence practically screams, “Look at me! Look how literary I am!” The dialogue is also an issue, particularly Henry’s, who speaks as if he learned English from an 18th-century etiquette manual. The novel would have benefited greatly from a ruthless editor with a sharp red pen.

The premise? Fantastic. The execution? Exhausting. The book tells you up front that Bunny gets murdered, but then it takes forever to get there. And once it does? It keeps dragging on. The first half is decent, even if it moves at a snail’s pace, but the second half becomes an endless loop of drinking, brooding, and bad decisions. The climax fizzles out, and the epilogue feels like an afterthought. This story could have been told in half the page count and lost nothing of value.

I wanted to love this book. I really did. But the pacing absolutely kills it. What starts as a compelling dark academia mystery quickly turns into a sluggish, self-indulgent slog. I found myself skimming through long, drawn-out sections where absolutely nothing happens—just the same five people drinking, panicking, and vaguely hinting at past traumas that never get fully explained. If you’re expecting a thrilling, mind-blowing literary mystery, prepare to be disappointed.

For a group of supposedly brilliant scholars, these characters make some truly idiotic decisions. Their entire plan to murder Bunny is laughably bad, and the fact that they aren’t immediately caught is nothing short of a miracle. Richard’s acceptance into this snobby, insular clique is way too easy, and Julian’s godlike status among them is never justified—he’s just there, being cryptic and disappearing when things get messy. The relationships feel shallow, particularly the implied romance between Charles and Camilla, which is hinted at but never actually explored in a meaningful way.

This book has flashes of brilliance, but it’s buried under layers of self-indulgence. What could have been a gripping psychological thriller is instead a bloated exercise in style over substance. The atmosphere and concept are strong, but the pacing issues, overwritten prose, and unlikable characters make it a frustrating read. I wanted to be swept away by its dark academia charm, but by the time I slogged through the last hundred pages, I was just relieved to be done.

The Secret History is like an overlong dinner party with pseudo-intellectuals who love the sound of their own voices. The setting is gorgeous, the premise is promising, but the story is bogged down by its own pretentiousness. If it were a third of the length, it might have been a fantastic read. As it stands, it’s an aesthetic mood piece disguised as a novel, and it overstays its welcome.

Decent but painfully self-indulgent. Would recommend only if you enjoy literary fiction that values aesthetics over storytelling.