― Michael Jacobs, Sunday, 11 January 2004 14:41 (twenty years ago) link
― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 01:04 (twenty years ago) link
― quincie, Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:43 (twenty years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:58 (twenty years ago) link
― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 20:37 (twenty years ago) link
As for the Hot or Not... that's even more subjective.
― Michael Jacobs (Michael Jacobs), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:46 (twenty years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 21:57 (twenty years ago) link
perhaps a cross between the two kinds of badness, but more entertaining than either.
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 01:08 (twenty years ago) link
― sarahweinman, Thursday, 15 January 2004 01:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Friday, 16 January 2004 17:46 (twenty years ago) link
well that sounds exactly like my college experience so I'll probably like it.
― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Friday, 16 January 2004 17:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Friday, 16 January 2004 18:17 (twenty years ago) link
― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Friday, 16 January 2004 18:26 (twenty years ago) link
― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Friday, 16 January 2004 18:27 (twenty years ago) link
That's so true! I first read it when I was in high school and remember thinking it was great, and then I picked it up again and couldn't even get all the way through it.
― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 16 January 2004 19:14 (twenty years ago) link
Just finished it for the second time (18ish and 34) - I think I appreciated it more this time because of the liberal arts college absurdity. It's like the first half of Kavalier & Clay or Rules of Attraction... or Buffy/Dawson's Creek. I love the melodrama of everything in the characters' lives being so weighty and Important, it's a feeling I sometimes I wish I could recapture as an adult. There's even a Flowers in the Attic angle!
As a mystery of sorts, the last 200 pages are quite good at ratcheting up the tension.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 12 April 2016 05:30 (eight years ago) link
I have only read THE SECRET HISTORY. I think I had always looked forward to it. When I finally read it, I was rather disappointed. As Chuck Tatum said 12 years ago, it is way too long -- it's 600pp when it could be 250pp. And the other flaws mentioned are real also, I think.
But I would still quite like to read her other novels.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 10:50 (eight years ago) link
If you think that was too long I'm not sure how you'd deal with the 800 page shaggy dog story that is 'The Goldfinch'.
― Just can't get Eno, ugh (ledge), Tuesday, 12 April 2016 11:29 (eight years ago) link
The entire plots of both The Secret History and The Goldfinch only hold up because the protagonists are exactly the same variety of stupid.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 12 April 2016 11:58 (eight years ago) link
Would agree re: The Goldfinch, he has years to figure out how to get out of his rather trivial dilemma (I still enjoyed it, for all that). TSH though, give them a break they're just poor frightened (naive, overprivileged) college kids.
― Just can't get Eno, ugh (ledge), Tuesday, 12 April 2016 12:13 (eight years ago) link
She's such a stupid writer, can't believe how seriously she's taken
― a hairy, howling toad torments a man whose wife is deathly ill (James Morrison), Wednesday, 13 April 2016 00:47 (eight years ago) link
haha, I finally read the Secret History and loved it, and then read the Goldfinch and loved that too. searched up this thread and have no recollection of my earlier question but I'm rather taken with the comparison I made having not read her yet. My assessment in the end: pretentious, yes; completely readable and engrossing? also yes.
― akm, Saturday, 19 May 2018 22:14 (five years ago) link