Review: The Secret History by Donna Tart

I recommend this book without hesitation. The title is slightly confusing though as this book as nothing to do with politics or conspiracy theories (ala Dan Brown).

Amazon’s synopsis is:

The narrator of this story is a boy who leaves California to attend a college in New England. He falls in with a group of students of Ancient Greek. Four of their number work themselves into a trance-like condition one night, and murder a local farmer. Bunny then tries to blackmail the others.

Donna Tart, the author, gives some great insight into what makes language students tick. She (and they) have very romantic ideas about stuff. To make things even worse they study Ancient Greek as well! I think she is a bit of a language snob though, but this doesn’t bother me as most students are snobs of their fields anyway.

I give this book a good 4½ (out of 5).