I really wanted to like Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Especially since I'm reading The Goldfinch and am really liking it. The Secret History is the classic middle class/scholarship kid getting wrapped up with the affluent rich kids in a quaint college. Richard Papen, after working his butt off to transfer from his humdrum college in California, attends Hampden College in Vermont. Because he studied Greek for two years decides to become a Classics major. The Classics program is very selective and small only having 5 students. 
 After hearing about a ritual that requires the loss of conscious self, 4 of the 6 students decide to embark on it with disasterous and murderous consequences. 
 Now, the summary of the book makes it seem that the students meet their downfall because of their "charismatic professor" but that wasn't the case. They may have gotten the whole madness ritual from him but the professor, albeit arrogant, wasn't insidious. 
 The characters were horrible. I teeter from liking Richard and screaming at him to grow a spine. The rest, Camilla, Charles, Henry, Francis, and Bunny, were horrendous and pretentious. God, their swarmy arrogance seeped in the pages. The incestous relationship between Camilla and Charles was gross. I couldn't tell the difference, at times, between Charles and Francis. I had hopes for Henry, whom I thought was going to go full out psychopath, but alas no. He was destined for a more anticlimatic ending. 
 The Secret History was needlessly too long and the narrative was excessive. Tartt made me work for the ending, the last 50 pages, which became quite compelling but ultimately, it wasn't worth it and I was extremely disappointed with it.