"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves?" 
 The Secret History is one of the best books I've ever read. Dark and atmospheric, Donna Tartt's tale about a group of Classics students, who commit murder in their attempt to grasp the true meaning of beauty, is utterly intoxicating and aesthetically pleasing. The first half of the book is written in such a powerful prose that the story transcends the pages and engulfs the reader into its picturesque and dreamy sequences. The second half, though unevenly paced and unnecessary long, turns the whole world upside down. Tartt's exemplary unreliable narration is finally revealed to the reader, who realizes, with horror, that they have been manipulated and fooled. 
 The descriptions are heart-wrenchingly beautiful and the characters remain, purposefully obscured till the very end, 
 "like a half- remembered fragment of a dream" 
 . Inspired by the Greek tragedies and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, The Secret History is a book about the pursue of beauty at all costs, which will have you question your own morality. 
 Magnificent.