#9 in Thriller
The Secret History
- 608
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“The Secret History” depends on its narrator, not on likeable people. Its close circle of Classics students is vain, privileged and often insufferable, and the book knows it; the pull is Richard’s voice, through which everything is seen. The outcome is announced early, so the suspense lies in how and why. Readers who need someone to root for may give up early; those who stay find a dark, slow-burning campus novel.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Secret History is the first novel by the American author Donna Tartt, published by Alfred A. Knopf in September 1992. A campus novel, it tells the story of a closely knit group of six Classics students at Hampden College, a small, elite liberal arts college in Vermont.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 1,870 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 93% of the weight and the score stays at 8.2 — the Thriller average of 7.6 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.0 | 87 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 1.8K | 95% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Secret History?
It has 608 pages — longer than 87% of the ranked books in Thriller.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Thriller — with scores between 7.8 and 8.3, closest to this book.
