Holy freak I have not read a book over 400 pages in a hot minute, I think the last big one I read was Plain Bad Heroines in like- 2023 (very gay and very good, might do a reread sooooon). BUT holy shit Donna you managed to have my full attention literally the whole time! And this book does not even have a dash of sapphicness in it HOW BIZARRE! I legit would go to bed thinking about this book, the plot was consistently interesting! So much was going on but at the same time so little...? IDFK let's figure it out together divas

Vague No-Spoiler Summary and Commentary

This book is super up front about the fact that a key character was, in fact, murdered- that's not really a spoiler blah blah blah. The five hundred sixty something page monster of a book was split into 2 halves, the first covers the events leading UP to the murder, the second half covers the unraveling of the characters in which they all lose their shit and go cray with drugs, drinks, incest OMG WHAT WHO SAID THAT? yeah u heard me. That bit was kinda icky but trust me, Donna knows what she is doing OKAY? That catastrophe contributes to the plot I pinky promise!

Now listen, I am a SUCKER for dark academia, it's gonna do it for me every time. And, as you will come to find out through my future reviews, setting is INCREDIBLY crucial to me. In this case, the story takes place primarily on a liberal artsy fartsy college campus in Vermont in the 80s, love it already. Worldbuilding was phenomenal, which is so so important for long books like this one.

Characters were all super different from one another and Donna literally ate UPPPP the character development for each and every one of them, even Henry! For the ones who know, Henry's character development was a bit more subtle but it was THERE. That's so hard to do, kudos queen Donna!

Note: As I had to make several **long** drives while I was in the middle of reading this, I listened to about 45% of it by way of audiobook on youtube. Donna HUNNYYYYY I've never listened to someone read an audiobook in a way that hasn't upset me until YOU. You have a lovely reading voice queen great job!

Final Notes

I am still thinking about this damn book and I keep imagining that I'm in a secret-y ominous intimate Greek class even though I'm literally just in several 200-person lame-ass lectures. I fucking bulldozed thru this book considering it's length and my average reading speed, just read it. The Secret History was deemed a modern classic for a reason.

Read 1/3/26-1/15/26, I give it 4.4/5 stars!