14 Reasons Why You Should Read The Secret History

With the ending revealed in the opening pages, the tension is high as it is revealed how such a conclusion came about.

Richard, Charles, Camilla, Henry, Frances and Bunny are fascinating characters to follow; they’re wealthy, entitled, privileged, highly intelligent and weirdly alien.

The writing it tense, atmospheric and incredibly gripping.

Though published in 1992 (we’re the same age!) and set in the early 80s, it’s incredibly current and charming at the same time.

The creeping darkness and mystery.

All of them are kind of despicable in their own ways, and yet I loved all of them. Except Bunny.

I loved the prominence of the gang’s Ancient Greek class and professor and the influence they had on their experience at Hampden.

Vermont is the perfect setting for such a story: dark, snowy and secluded.

It gets darker, tenser and more twisted after a murder…

The subtle and cruel ways they injure each other are horrifying, but fascinating. Much like the way people slow down to look at a car accident.

Henry’s inextricable hold over the group is strange and automatic; it seems so completely natural for them to follow him. And do whatever he says.

It’s so beautifully written it’ll make you ache.

The ending is devastating, but in the right way.

You’ll be seriously missing out if you don’t. At the moment, The Secret History is the best books I’ve read this year.

About the Book

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

660|Penguin Books|1^st July 1993

Sophie