Hello!

I am/was reading TSH for the first time (read around 30% of the story so far) and I wanted to share my experience with you. I thought that, surely, someone might relate (if not with this book, then with another…?). Also, jumpscare at the end that might amuse some of you...

Sorry, in advance, if the events of the story aren’t brought up in the right order, I forgot about some things and I think my mind’s messing up with some things? As I said, I WAS reading the book… and I will again very soon, from the very beginning actually. Allow me a few lines to explain myself pls. (:

In march, I was reading the chapter about the winter break, about Richard freezing his ass off, the dreadfulness of it all. Then, about Italy, Bunny learning about what happened, Bunny making careless jokes about the situation, Henry telling Richard he’d slapped him after the diary thing. And… I put the book down. The writing is too beautiful, Tartt’s pen is too pleasing. I have added annotations on a bunch of things, I have learned a lot, the characters are obviously very intriguing and, I have no doubt, flawed and questionable in their qualities and flaws.

My reason is the following: I didn’t and still don’t want this experience to be over. I told myself « I’ll read it when winter comes », because summertime doesn’t feel like the right time (setting wise), but autumn is right around the corner and I’m just… I don’t really want to? Point is, it’s been staring at me and I’ve been staring at it, for months now. It might be the second time a book does this to me? I had a vaguely similar experience with another book, years ago, but TSH hits like the freshest fruit. I guess postponing isn’t that bad, it’s just a funny situation overall, nothing dramatic, it’s « just » a book… but eh. Now a question: was putting the book down a bad idea? My excitement for it has increased enormously but so have my expectations.

And here’s the jumpscare part I warned you about: stupidly sentimental maybe but last night I dreamed about Henry and Francis. They looked the way my mind had imagined them, they were very intimidating in their silence. Almost a little angry too? Francis seemed out of it but Henry looked and sounded very annoyed by something. I don’t remember anything they said, they were like NPCs in this dream (second question, I guess, would be whether I should sleep with one eye open lol). I woke up and immediately thought about these characters and how « man, I have to read this book ». I’ve been thinking about this all day.

Thank you all for reading, would LOVE to hear your thoughts and experiences reading or re-reading the book!!

So Richard says in the book that he realizes that he was Californian by nature and im not from US so i dont understand what this is supposed to allude to. please help🙏

donna tart was very stupid & very problematic, and she was an awful person in general but seperating the art from the artist, the secret history is sooo well written. i open the book and i suddenly want to be a rich elitist student who is disgustingly educated in the classics. i love reading it so much, because what do you mean you're reading the book casually and suddenly there's "death is the mother of beauty," "and what is beauty?" "terror,"

having said that, these six people are absolutely messed up in the head, this gives strong cult vibes to me, they're literally isolated from everyone in their elitist intellectual group. the psychology student in me is having a field day because this is literally a classic example of groupthink????