The Secret History by Donna Tartt, 559 pages.
Richard is a scholarship student at a small but respected university in New England. From the day he sees them he is intrigued by the insular and enigmatic group of classics students, the only five at the whole university involved in their program, which rarely puts them in contact with the other students and almost exclusively taking classes with one charismatic professor. After a chance encounter he is accepted into the program and their ranks, which begins a year that forms social bonds he can never break and ends with murder.
It's honestly a little surprising that I am just now reading this book, which definitely had an influence on many books I've enjoyed. The plot is honestly only alright, but the writing is lush and descriptive. It's not surprising the dark academia (which this book is largely credited as the progenitor of) is a sub-genre defined more by its aesthetics and atmosphere than anything else. The novel is immersive, and I found myself entirely unbothered by the fact that the details weren't anything phenomenal. Somehow reading The Secret History felt like the quintessential experience of reading a book. I don't know if I would recommend this book to everyone, but I would definitely recommend it to people who are more invested in prose than plot.
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