A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.

A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.



The Secret History (Penguin Celebrations) , 04 Nov 2008
I was recommended to read this by a work colleague and by my partner. So I thought, this will be a great read - i'm sorry, it really wasn't.

The book is eons long, but not a lot happens, the characters are interesting but not so interesting they could hold my attention for the length of this book. The story line was pretty dull. Summed up (by me) as 'students kill a man and then one of their own'. Thank you, that's just not enough to hold my attention.

Written in a flowery style - author obviously knows her words and love to describe things, I should be impressed, but i'm sorry, i'm not.

A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.



The Secret History (Penguin Celebrations) , 04 Nov 2008
I was recommended to read this by a work colleague and by my partner. So I thought, this will be a great read - i'm sorry, it really wasn't.

The book is eons long, but not a lot happens, the characters are interesting but not so interesting they could hold my attention for the length of this book. The story line was pretty dull. Summed up (by me) as 'students kill a man and then one of their own'. Thank you, that's just not enough to hold my attention.

Written in a flowery style - author obviously knows her words and love to describe things, I should be impressed, but i'm sorry, i'm not.

A little lost, 13 Jul 2008
Donna Tartt has chosen some tough acts to follow with her second book: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Carson McCulloch, some of the greats of literature have set their work in America's South and at least two have chosen as their subject girls on the edge of puberty. Perhaps it's unfair to judge Tartt's book against these, but the comparisons are inevitable. Having said that, she does a fair job. The strength of her writing (as with many female authors in my opinion) is her eye for detail. She recreates a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, right down to the boiled peanuts and Country Club swimming pool, the smiley face t-shirts and Wacky Pack stickers. The trap of such writing, entertaining though it is, is that the setting becomes the story.

The book concerns the Cleve family, in particular Harriet Cleve Dufresne, a clever neglected child of Southern gentility on their uppers. Harriet's older brother, Robin, is found dead when Harriet is a baby, a blow from which Harriet's mother and her marriage never really recover. Harriet resolves to find the killer of her brother (although we never discover if his death is nothing more than a tragic accident) and the story takes us through the summer of her investigation and the consequences of this for a family of backwoods drug dealers, the Ratliffs.

And that's really all there is to it. If you enjoy reading meticulous descriptions of the houses of each of Harriet's many aunts, exchanges between Harriet and her devoted follower Hely, the bizarre family life of the Ratliff brothers and their permanently-on-the-edge-of-death grandmother, Gum, then this is the book for you. In my opinion, these kinds of pen portraits, undriven by the necessities of a plot, work best when they are refined and condensed, a la Carson McCullers for example. Otherwise, it can become a pointless ramble the reader has to wade through to get to the next event. This might matter less if all the description had some thematic point - to illustrate the huge social changes that were going on at that point in American history for example - but the town, Alexandria, and the Cleves exist in a vacuum, so the exquisite detail just become an end in itself.

In summary: well written, entertaining, but lacks edge and clarity through weak plotting and lack of thematic development.


a dreadful, turgid, overwritten bore of a book, 04 Jan 2008
Need one say more? This is the slowest and most boring book ever written. The Secret History was a treat, but this? Complete trash. The main premise is absurd, the characters feeble, the eventual denouement (if one can call it that) is weak and not in the slightest bit interesting or exciting (especially if you've waded through hundreds of waffling pages to get to it). Everything about the Little Friend is poor. I rarely write a review, but simply had to save other readers from wasting time and money on this sprawling and awful book. Shame on you, Ms Tartt, for writing it (doesn't your computer have a delete key?) and shame on the publishers (and editor) for letting it out.

The Little Friend, 28 Sep 2007
Having adored Tartt's first book, The Secret History, it was in an apoplexy of excitement that I opened her second. At first the rich, multi-layered text (poetic, never patronizing) didn't disappoint. The story on the other hand, did. Wandering aimlessly between characters, The Little Friend unfolds on the weakest of plots barely and irritatingly sustained through a multiplicity of changing points of view. It's hard to understand whose story this is, and even harder to care. The beautifully crafted sentences simply can't sustain the lack of substance. Sadly this novel has all the signs of having been the product of perspiration rather than inspiration.

Good but a little long, 21 Sep 2007
I found this not as great as 'the secret history; but a worthwhile read all the same. Tartt draws you in too a close knit almost claustrophic world. The middle bit does drag but it really does pick up towards the end.

Enjoyable look at small town life, 27 Jul 2007
Having enjoyed reading A Secret History, it was with great relish that I opened The Little Friend and was not disappointed. The book opens with the death of Robin Cleve on a warm summers day, and the trigger for the main part of the book is the decision of his sister, Harriet, twelve years later, to find who did it.

Harriet's determination is in part predicated by the dysfunction she sees in her own family and which she blames on Robin's death the fact the killer apprehended. Tart has created a formidable character in Harriet, and whilst she is not physically attractive, she has a moral doughtiness that is appealing. In some passages it is easy to forget that she is only twelve years old, and my only real criticism of the book is whether she is capable of her actions in the last portion of the book.

Tartt rambles through Harriet's journey, in a way that allows her to introduce us to a large cast of characters whom we come to know (and in the case of the aunties, love) and there are many diverting side stories within the book. In many ways the book is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird, where the plot serves as a device to introduce a wider range of characters and look at the way small rural communities fit together.

There are odd scenes of comedy, but Tartt has succeeded in creating a claustrophobic book - whilst reading it I felt I should be sitting in a dusty lane somewhere. Her writing is a joy to read - her prose is beautifully descriptive and the pace of the book also succeeds in adding to the claustrophobia. There are some wonderfully written scenes, and whilst there are many unresolved issues at the end, for the reader, as for the characters, it is the journey that is more important than the end point.

Ten years in the writing, it can hardly be said that The Little Friend, Donna Tartt's second novel and the follow-up to her phenomenally successful and assured debut The Secret History, was rushed out. But was it worth the wait? Write about what you know is an old adage and much of the appeal of her first book was that its sense of place--an exclusive New England campus was clearly and so adroitly drawn from intimate experience. Here, the Mississippi-born Tartt utilises, piercingly on occasions, the American landscape of her own childhood.

The Cleves--Charlotte, Grandma Edith, Great Aunt Adelaide, Aunts Libby and Tat--are a southern family of noble stock but, by the early 1970s, diminished numbers and wealth; haunted by the motiveless, unsolved murder of 9-year-old Robin, "their dear little Robs", a decade earlier. (The novel opens, a la Bunny's corpse in The Secret History, with his body found hanging from a black-tupelo tree in the garden: "the toes of his limp tennis shoes dangled six inches above the grass.") Harriet, Charlotte's youngest child, "neither sweet nor pretty" like her sister, Allison, but "smart" was a baby when Robin died. Now a precocious, bookish pre-teen, she is convinced she can unravel the mystery of his death. Her chief suspects are the Ratliffs, a local clan of speed-dealing ne'er-do-wells, one of whom, Danny, had been in Robin's class. (The Ratliffs own sorry histories, and in particular the corrosive influence of matriarch Gum, are tidily juxtaposed throughout the book with the varying fortunes of the Cleves.) Harriet enlists Hely, her willing schoolyard disciple, to help investigate.

For a while the novel takes on a positively Nancy Drew-esque hue; Harriet and Hely the spies, sneaking into buildings, making off with poisonous snakes and escaping from drug-addled trailer trash on bicycles. In a significant departure from The Secret History though, Tartt does not seem unduly concerned about plot and, or, pacing. She's interested in characterisation and the bickering aunts and so many of the minor characters, the odious car dealer Mr Dial, for example, "all rectitude and pickiness, sweet moral outrage itself", are realised wonderfully. This isn't to say it's not well plotted; it is, as the dénouement eventually reveals, but it is rather languid and things can get a bit soggy midway. (Overuse of the adjective "stolidly", a word that unavoidably, if quite erroneously, calls to mind heavy fruitcake, doesn't really help either.) Tartt's Southern Gothic saga may lack the page-turning thrill of her last novel but it's, ultimately, a no less impressive or rewarding work of fiction. --Travis Elborough

A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.



The Secret History (Penguin Celebrations) , 04 Nov 2008
I was recommended to read this by a work colleague and by my partner. So I thought, this will be a great read - i'm sorry, it really wasn't.

The book is eons long, but not a lot happens, the characters are interesting but not so interesting they could hold my attention for the length of this book. The story line was pretty dull. Summed up (by me) as 'students kill a man and then one of their own'. Thank you, that's just not enough to hold my attention.

Written in a flowery style - author obviously knows her words and love to describe things, I should be impressed, but i'm sorry, i'm not.

A little lost, 13 Jul 2008
Donna Tartt has chosen some tough acts to follow with her second book: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Carson McCulloch, some of the greats of literature have set their work in America's South and at least two have chosen as their subject girls on the edge of puberty. Perhaps it's unfair to judge Tartt's book against these, but the comparisons are inevitable. Having said that, she does a fair job. The strength of her writing (as with many female authors in my opinion) is her eye for detail. She recreates a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, right down to the boiled peanuts and Country Club swimming pool, the smiley face t-shirts and Wacky Pack stickers. The trap of such writing, entertaining though it is, is that the setting becomes the story.

The book concerns the Cleve family, in particular Harriet Cleve Dufresne, a clever neglected child of Southern gentility on their uppers. Harriet's older brother, Robin, is found dead when Harriet is a baby, a blow from which Harriet's mother and her marriage never really recover. Harriet resolves to find the killer of her brother (although we never discover if his death is nothing more than a tragic accident) and the story takes us through the summer of her investigation and the consequences of this for a family of backwoods drug dealers, the Ratliffs.

And that's really all there is to it. If you enjoy reading meticulous descriptions of the houses of each of Harriet's many aunts, exchanges between Harriet and her devoted follower Hely, the bizarre family life of the Ratliff brothers and their permanently-on-the-edge-of-death grandmother, Gum, then this is the book for you. In my opinion, these kinds of pen portraits, undriven by the necessities of a plot, work best when they are refined and condensed, a la Carson McCullers for example. Otherwise, it can become a pointless ramble the reader has to wade through to get to the next event. This might matter less if all the description had some thematic point - to illustrate the huge social changes that were going on at that point in American history for example - but the town, Alexandria, and the Cleves exist in a vacuum, so the exquisite detail just become an end in itself.

In summary: well written, entertaining, but lacks edge and clarity through weak plotting and lack of thematic development.


a dreadful, turgid, overwritten bore of a book, 04 Jan 2008
Need one say more? This is the slowest and most boring book ever written. The Secret History was a treat, but this? Complete trash. The main premise is absurd, the characters feeble, the eventual denouement (if one can call it that) is weak and not in the slightest bit interesting or exciting (especially if you've waded through hundreds of waffling pages to get to it). Everything about the Little Friend is poor. I rarely write a review, but simply had to save other readers from wasting time and money on this sprawling and awful book. Shame on you, Ms Tartt, for writing it (doesn't your computer have a delete key?) and shame on the publishers (and editor) for letting it out.

The Little Friend, 28 Sep 2007
Having adored Tartt's first book, The Secret History, it was in an apoplexy of excitement that I opened her second. At first the rich, multi-layered text (poetic, never patronizing) didn't disappoint. The story on the other hand, did. Wandering aimlessly between characters, The Little Friend unfolds on the weakest of plots barely and irritatingly sustained through a multiplicity of changing points of view. It's hard to understand whose story this is, and even harder to care. The beautifully crafted sentences simply can't sustain the lack of substance. Sadly this novel has all the signs of having been the product of perspiration rather than inspiration.

Good but a little long, 21 Sep 2007
I found this not as great as 'the secret history; but a worthwhile read all the same. Tartt draws you in too a close knit almost claustrophic world. The middle bit does drag but it really does pick up towards the end.

Enjoyable look at small town life, 27 Jul 2007
Having enjoyed reading A Secret History, it was with great relish that I opened The Little Friend and was not disappointed. The book opens with the death of Robin Cleve on a warm summers day, and the trigger for the main part of the book is the decision of his sister, Harriet, twelve years later, to find who did it.

Harriet's determination is in part predicated by the dysfunction she sees in her own family and which she blames on Robin's death the fact the killer apprehended. Tart has created a formidable character in Harriet, and whilst she is not physically attractive, she has a moral doughtiness that is appealing. In some passages it is easy to forget that she is only twelve years old, and my only real criticism of the book is whether she is capable of her actions in the last portion of the book.

Tartt rambles through Harriet's journey, in a way that allows her to introduce us to a large cast of characters whom we come to know (and in the case of the aunties, love) and there are many diverting side stories within the book. In many ways the book is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird, where the plot serves as a device to introduce a wider range of characters and look at the way small rural communities fit together.

There are odd scenes of comedy, but Tartt has succeeded in creating a claustrophobic book - whilst reading it I felt I should be sitting in a dusty lane somewhere. Her writing is a joy to read - her prose is beautifully descriptive and the pace of the book also succeeds in adding to the claustrophobia. There are some wonderfully written scenes, and whilst there are many unresolved issues at the end, for the reader, as for the characters, it is the journey that is more important than the end point.

Haunting, vivid, unputdownable, 11 Aug 2004
Excellent. The characters, the town, the society, are depicted beautifully, the whole atmosphere "breathes", you feel the heat, you share the characters'feelings, you have to laugh with the incredible squalor and horror of the Ratliff family, you have to love little Hely who is so much "inferior" to the nightmarish little girl, Harriet. I was steeped in the story, the marvellous writing.
BUT the Bloomsbury paper back edition I read, had very small print,as a result I had to read the whole book using a magnifying lense! Isn't there any hardcover with decent print left?

Afrikaner's view on excellent read, 02 Feb 2004
There is nobody , in my opinion , that uses the english language in a more beautiful way than D. Tartt . She really introduced me to the english language as a thing of beauty . It is obvious that she knows the meaning of words in their exact settings . As in an enormous and colourfull painting , I can still see every character and scene cleary . I can hear and smell the whole community . In my opinion the death of Robin was an accident . A child playing with a rope . That is what the eldest daughter saw . I have become a big fan of D. Tartt , and will reread ' The Little Friend ' , rather than 'The secret History ' .

Disappointed!, 09 Sep 2003
I agree whole heartedly with the previous negative review, although I have also read the Secret History. The contrast between these two novels should leave all readers disappointed. The Little Friend was largely hyped on the back of Tart's 10 year absence since her debut and that period of absence should surely have produced an impressive work, shouldn't it? Not so, the book does have excellent detail and characterisation as previous reviewers have noted. However, Tart gets too involved with this art, which she appears to find easier than developing a cohesive storyline. As I approached the last hundred pages a cloud of depression enveloped me as it became clear that the author would either rush to conclude the novel or fail to conclude it at all. In the end she opted for the latter. Hely's outburst, Eugene's evolution into a more sinister Ratliff and the question of Harriet's own potential guilt as she copes with the possibility that she has erroneously identified her brother's assailant all leave too much to the reader. Donna Tart should go back to the shadows for another ten years but this time let someone talented proof read her new work before she let's the publishing world hype it.

Confused genre, 19 Jul 2003
Not having read "The Secret History", this was my initiation to Ms. Tartt.

The novel starts with excellent character development and background history. However, you keep expecting the plot to kick in, but all you get is MORE character development and MORE background. In the end, I only carried on with the book because I was committed, being half way through it. How mad was I then, to realize that the book has no definitive ending!

Ms. Tartt seams to have confused her genre; either write a "character development" novel, or a "mystery/suspense" novel, but don't try to do both in one book, because you will end up with neither.

I am now discouraged to buy her first novel, which, however, I understand is much better. Extremely disappointing - one for the boot sale.

A potential great film, 14 Jul 2003
Although not as brilliant as The Secret History Tartt’s second novel is in its way a good read. Characterisation is the main pull of this book and there is a wonderful cast of eccentric doddery great aunts, white trailer trash, a second hand car salesman, a somnolent sister and born again Christian preachers with a penchant for snakes.

Harriet the 12-year-old protagonist is on the verge of adulthood and for all her book-learned knowledge and intellect the world of adults is still a mystery. Rather than being a standard whodunnit murder story, this novel is more an exploration of growing up and the complexities and responsibilities of adulthood.

Gripping, dull and humorous by turns, the one thing that struck me throughout was the feeling that in the right hands The Little Friend could be one of the rare occasions when the film might be better than the novel. Anyone know if the Cohen brothers are free?

A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.



The Secret History (Penguin Celebrations) , 04 Nov 2008
I was recommended to read this by a work colleague and by my partner. So I thought, this will be a great read - i'm sorry, it really wasn't.

The book is eons long, but not a lot happens, the characters are interesting but not so interesting they could hold my attention for the length of this book. The story line was pretty dull. Summed up (by me) as 'students kill a man and then one of their own'. Thank you, that's just not enough to hold my attention.

Written in a flowery style - author obviously knows her words and love to describe things, I should be impressed, but i'm sorry, i'm not.

A little lost, 13 Jul 2008
Donna Tartt has chosen some tough acts to follow with her second book: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Carson McCulloch, some of the greats of literature have set their work in America's South and at least two have chosen as their subject girls on the edge of puberty. Perhaps it's unfair to judge Tartt's book against these, but the comparisons are inevitable. Having said that, she does a fair job. The strength of her writing (as with many female authors in my opinion) is her eye for detail. She recreates a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, right down to the boiled peanuts and Country Club swimming pool, the smiley face t-shirts and Wacky Pack stickers. The trap of such writing, entertaining though it is, is that the setting becomes the story.

The book concerns the Cleve family, in particular Harriet Cleve Dufresne, a clever neglected child of Southern gentility on their uppers. Harriet's older brother, Robin, is found dead when Harriet is a baby, a blow from which Harriet's mother and her marriage never really recover. Harriet resolves to find the killer of her brother (although we never discover if his death is nothing more than a tragic accident) and the story takes us through the summer of her investigation and the consequences of this for a family of backwoods drug dealers, the Ratliffs.

And that's really all there is to it. If you enjoy reading meticulous descriptions of the houses of each of Harriet's many aunts, exchanges between Harriet and her devoted follower Hely, the bizarre family life of the Ratliff brothers and their permanently-on-the-edge-of-death grandmother, Gum, then this is the book for you. In my opinion, these kinds of pen portraits, undriven by the necessities of a plot, work best when they are refined and condensed, a la Carson McCullers for example. Otherwise, it can become a pointless ramble the reader has to wade through to get to the next event. This might matter less if all the description had some thematic point - to illustrate the huge social changes that were going on at that point in American history for example - but the town, Alexandria, and the Cleves exist in a vacuum, so the exquisite detail just become an end in itself.

In summary: well written, entertaining, but lacks edge and clarity through weak plotting and lack of thematic development.


a dreadful, turgid, overwritten bore of a book, 04 Jan 2008
Need one say more? This is the slowest and most boring book ever written. The Secret History was a treat, but this? Complete trash. The main premise is absurd, the characters feeble, the eventual denouement (if one can call it that) is weak and not in the slightest bit interesting or exciting (especially if you've waded through hundreds of waffling pages to get to it). Everything about the Little Friend is poor. I rarely write a review, but simply had to save other readers from wasting time and money on this sprawling and awful book. Shame on you, Ms Tartt, for writing it (doesn't your computer have a delete key?) and shame on the publishers (and editor) for letting it out.

The Little Friend, 28 Sep 2007
Having adored Tartt's first book, The Secret History, it was in an apoplexy of excitement that I opened her second. At first the rich, multi-layered text (poetic, never patronizing) didn't disappoint. The story on the other hand, did. Wandering aimlessly between characters, The Little Friend unfolds on the weakest of plots barely and irritatingly sustained through a multiplicity of changing points of view. It's hard to understand whose story this is, and even harder to care. The beautifully crafted sentences simply can't sustain the lack of substance. Sadly this novel has all the signs of having been the product of perspiration rather than inspiration.

Good but a little long, 21 Sep 2007
I found this not as great as 'the secret history; but a worthwhile read all the same. Tartt draws you in too a close knit almost claustrophic world. The middle bit does drag but it really does pick up towards the end.

Enjoyable look at small town life, 27 Jul 2007
Having enjoyed reading A Secret History, it was with great relish that I opened The Little Friend and was not disappointed. The book opens with the death of Robin Cleve on a warm summers day, and the trigger for the main part of the book is the decision of his sister, Harriet, twelve years later, to find who did it.

Harriet's determination is in part predicated by the dysfunction she sees in her own family and which she blames on Robin's death the fact the killer apprehended. Tart has created a formidable character in Harriet, and whilst she is not physically attractive, she has a moral doughtiness that is appealing. In some passages it is easy to forget that she is only twelve years old, and my only real criticism of the book is whether she is capable of her actions in the last portion of the book.

Tartt rambles through Harriet's journey, in a way that allows her to introduce us to a large cast of characters whom we come to know (and in the case of the aunties, love) and there are many diverting side stories within the book. In many ways the book is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird, where the plot serves as a device to introduce a wider range of characters and look at the way small rural communities fit together.

There are odd scenes of comedy, but Tartt has succeeded in creating a claustrophobic book - whilst reading it I felt I should be sitting in a dusty lane somewhere. Her writing is a joy to read - her prose is beautifully descriptive and the pace of the book also succeeds in adding to the claustrophobia. There are some wonderfully written scenes, and whilst there are many unresolved issues at the end, for the reader, as for the characters, it is the journey that is more important than the end point.

Haunting, vivid, unputdownable, 11 Aug 2004
Excellent. The characters, the town, the society, are depicted beautifully, the whole atmosphere "breathes", you feel the heat, you share the characters'feelings, you have to laugh with the incredible squalor and horror of the Ratliff family, you have to love little Hely who is so much "inferior" to the nightmarish little girl, Harriet. I was steeped in the story, the marvellous writing.
BUT the Bloomsbury paper back edition I read, had very small print,as a result I had to read the whole book using a magnifying lense! Isn't there any hardcover with decent print left?

Afrikaner's view on excellent read, 02 Feb 2004
There is nobody , in my opinion , that uses the english language in a more beautiful way than D. Tartt . She really introduced me to the english language as a thing of beauty . It is obvious that she knows the meaning of words in their exact settings . As in an enormous and colourfull painting , I can still see every character and scene cleary . I can hear and smell the whole community . In my opinion the death of Robin was an accident . A child playing with a rope . That is what the eldest daughter saw . I have become a big fan of D. Tartt , and will reread ' The Little Friend ' , rather than 'The secret History ' .

Disappointed!, 09 Sep 2003
I agree whole heartedly with the previous negative review, although I have also read the Secret History. The contrast between these two novels should leave all readers disappointed. The Little Friend was largely hyped on the back of Tart's 10 year absence since her debut and that period of absence should surely have produced an impressive work, shouldn't it? Not so, the book does have excellent detail and characterisation as previous reviewers have noted. However, Tart gets too involved with this art, which she appears to find easier than developing a cohesive storyline. As I approached the last hundred pages a cloud of depression enveloped me as it became clear that the author would either rush to conclude the novel or fail to conclude it at all. In the end she opted for the latter. Hely's outburst, Eugene's evolution into a more sinister Ratliff and the question of Harriet's own potential guilt as she copes with the possibility that she has erroneously identified her brother's assailant all leave too much to the reader. Donna Tart should go back to the shadows for another ten years but this time let someone talented proof read her new work before she let's the publishing world hype it.

Confused genre, 19 Jul 2003
Not having read "The Secret History", this was my initiation to Ms. Tartt.

The novel starts with excellent character development and background history. However, you keep expecting the plot to kick in, but all you get is MORE character development and MORE background. In the end, I only carried on with the book because I was committed, being half way through it. How mad was I then, to realize that the book has no definitive ending!

Ms. Tartt seams to have confused her genre; either write a "character development" novel, or a "mystery/suspense" novel, but don't try to do both in one book, because you will end up with neither.

I am now discouraged to buy her first novel, which, however, I understand is much better. Extremely disappointing - one for the boot sale.

A potential great film, 14 Jul 2003
Although not as brilliant as The Secret History Tartt’s second novel is in its way a good read. Characterisation is the main pull of this book and there is a wonderful cast of eccentric doddery great aunts, white trailer trash, a second hand car salesman, a somnolent sister and born again Christian preachers with a penchant for snakes.

Harriet the 12-year-old protagonist is on the verge of adulthood and for all her book-learned knowledge and intellect the world of adults is still a mystery. Rather than being a standard whodunnit murder story, this novel is more an exploration of growing up and the complexities and responsibilities of adulthood.

Gripping, dull and humorous by turns, the one thing that struck me throughout was the feeling that in the right hands The Little Friend could be one of the rare occasions when the film might be better than the novel. Anyone know if the Cohen brothers are free?

A UNIQUELY PERSONAL READING, 26 Nov 2002
Donna Tartt, novelist, essayist, critic, and author of the blockbuster "The Secret History" brings a uniquely personal understanding to her reading of "The Little Friend."

A richly imagined story of familial ties and the pursuit of truth, Ms. Tartt's latest offering is sure to bring additional plaudits. No doubt, readers and listeners will find it well worth the decade long wait since Ms. Tartt's superlative debut novel. When asked why it took her ten years to write "The Little Friend," the author replied in part, "There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from the conveyor belt every couple of years. But it's for every writer to decide his own pace, and the pace varies with the writer and the work.......When I was young, I was deeply struck by a piece of advice that John Gardner gave to beginning writers: ‘Write as if you have all eternity.' This is the last thing a publisher or an agent or an accountant would tell you, but it's the best advice in the world if you want to write beautiful, well-made books. And that's what I want to do. I'd rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones."

It would seem that Ms. Tartt is incapable of penning even a mediocre phrase, as her latest story attests - it is compelling, and memorable.

Nine-year-old Robin Cleve Dufresnes is found dead, hanging from a tupelo tree in his family's yard. Harriet was a mere baby when her brother's body was discovered, and his killer has never been found.

The boy's death virtually destroyed his mother who has turned inward and become a recluse; his father disappeared from the community where this tragedy occurred. Thus, Harriet and another sister, Allison, have been left to grow very much on their own. Their lives have been overseen by a black maid and a coterie of female relative, including a stern grandmother.

Twelve-year-old Harriet determines to catch her brother's murderer, deciding that it is Danny Ratliff. After all he comes from a family of down-at-the-heels criminals. Harriet and her good friend, Hely, begin to stalk the Ratliffs, a tactic which leads them into great danger.

Set in 1970s Mississippi, "The Little Friend" underscores the author's considerable gifts, not the least of which are her command of language, elegant prose, and mastery of suspense.

A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.



The Secret History (Penguin Celebrations) , 04 Nov 2008
I was recommended to read this by a work colleague and by my partner. So I thought, this will be a great read - i'm sorry, it really wasn't.

The book is eons long, but not a lot happens, the characters are interesting but not so interesting they could hold my attention for the length of this book. The story line was pretty dull. Summed up (by me) as 'students kill a man and then one of their own'. Thank you, that's just not enough to hold my attention.

Written in a flowery style - author obviously knows her words and love to describe things, I should be impressed, but i'm sorry, i'm not.

A little lost, 13 Jul 2008
Donna Tartt has chosen some tough acts to follow with her second book: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Carson McCulloch, some of the greats of literature have set their work in America's South and at least two have chosen as their subject girls on the edge of puberty. Perhaps it's unfair to judge Tartt's book against these, but the comparisons are inevitable. Having said that, she does a fair job. The strength of her writing (as with many female authors in my opinion) is her eye for detail. She recreates a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, right down to the boiled peanuts and Country Club swimming pool, the smiley face t-shirts and Wacky Pack stickers. The trap of such writing, entertaining though it is, is that the setting becomes the story.

The book concerns the Cleve family, in particular Harriet Cleve Dufresne, a clever neglected child of Southern gentility on their uppers. Harriet's older brother, Robin, is found dead when Harriet is a baby, a blow from which Harriet's mother and her marriage never really recover. Harriet resolves to find the killer of her brother (although we never discover if his death is nothing more than a tragic accident) and the story takes us through the summer of her investigation and the consequences of this for a family of backwoods drug dealers, the Ratliffs.

And that's really all there is to it. If you enjoy reading meticulous descriptions of the houses of each of Harriet's many aunts, exchanges between Harriet and her devoted follower Hely, the bizarre family life of the Ratliff brothers and their permanently-on-the-edge-of-death grandmother, Gum, then this is the book for you. In my opinion, these kinds of pen portraits, undriven by the necessities of a plot, work best when they are refined and condensed, a la Carson McCullers for example. Otherwise, it can become a pointless ramble the reader has to wade through to get to the next event. This might matter less if all the description had some thematic point - to illustrate the huge social changes that were going on at that point in American history for example - but the town, Alexandria, and the Cleves exist in a vacuum, so the exquisite detail just become an end in itself.

In summary: well written, entertaining, but lacks edge and clarity through weak plotting and lack of thematic development.


a dreadful, turgid, overwritten bore of a book, 04 Jan 2008
Need one say more? This is the slowest and most boring book ever written. The Secret History was a treat, but this? Complete trash. The main premise is absurd, the characters feeble, the eventual denouement (if one can call it that) is weak and not in the slightest bit interesting or exciting (especially if you've waded through hundreds of waffling pages to get to it). Everything about the Little Friend is poor. I rarely write a review, but simply had to save other readers from wasting time and money on this sprawling and awful book. Shame on you, Ms Tartt, for writing it (doesn't your computer have a delete key?) and shame on the publishers (and editor) for letting it out.

The Little Friend, 28 Sep 2007
Having adored Tartt's first book, The Secret History, it was in an apoplexy of excitement that I opened her second. At first the rich, multi-layered text (poetic, never patronizing) didn't disappoint. The story on the other hand, did. Wandering aimlessly between characters, The Little Friend unfolds on the weakest of plots barely and irritatingly sustained through a multiplicity of changing points of view. It's hard to understand whose story this is, and even harder to care. The beautifully crafted sentences simply can't sustain the lack of substance. Sadly this novel has all the signs of having been the product of perspiration rather than inspiration.

Good but a little long, 21 Sep 2007
I found this not as great as 'the secret history; but a worthwhile read all the same. Tartt draws you in too a close knit almost claustrophic world. The middle bit does drag but it really does pick up towards the end.

Enjoyable look at small town life, 27 Jul 2007
Having enjoyed reading A Secret History, it was with great relish that I opened The Little Friend and was not disappointed. The book opens with the death of Robin Cleve on a warm summers day, and the trigger for the main part of the book is the decision of his sister, Harriet, twelve years later, to find who did it.

Harriet's determination is in part predicated by the dysfunction she sees in her own family and which she blames on Robin's death the fact the killer apprehended. Tart has created a formidable character in Harriet, and whilst she is not physically attractive, she has a moral doughtiness that is appealing. In some passages it is easy to forget that she is only twelve years old, and my only real criticism of the book is whether she is capable of her actions in the last portion of the book.

Tartt rambles through Harriet's journey, in a way that allows her to introduce us to a large cast of characters whom we come to know (and in the case of the aunties, love) and there are many diverting side stories within the book. In many ways the book is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird, where the plot serves as a device to introduce a wider range of characters and look at the way small rural communities fit together.

There are odd scenes of comedy, but Tartt has succeeded in creating a claustrophobic book - whilst reading it I felt I should be sitting in a dusty lane somewhere. Her writing is a joy to read - her prose is beautifully descriptive and the pace of the book also succeeds in adding to the claustrophobia. There are some wonderfully written scenes, and whilst there are many unresolved issues at the end, for the reader, as for the characters, it is the journey that is more important than the end point.

Haunting, vivid, unputdownable, 11 Aug 2004
Excellent. The characters, the town, the society, are depicted beautifully, the whole atmosphere "breathes", you feel the heat, you share the characters'feelings, you have to laugh with the incredible squalor and horror of the Ratliff family, you have to love little Hely who is so much "inferior" to the nightmarish little girl, Harriet. I was steeped in the story, the marvellous writing.
BUT the Bloomsbury paper back edition I read, had very small print,as a result I had to read the whole book using a magnifying lense! Isn't there any hardcover with decent print left?

Afrikaner's view on excellent read, 02 Feb 2004
There is nobody , in my opinion , that uses the english language in a more beautiful way than D. Tartt . She really introduced me to the english language as a thing of beauty . It is obvious that she knows the meaning of words in their exact settings . As in an enormous and colourfull painting , I can still see every character and scene cleary . I can hear and smell the whole community . In my opinion the death of Robin was an accident . A child playing with a rope . That is what the eldest daughter saw . I have become a big fan of D. Tartt , and will reread ' The Little Friend ' , rather than 'The secret History ' .

Disappointed!, 09 Sep 2003
I agree whole heartedly with the previous negative review, although I have also read the Secret History. The contrast between these two novels should leave all readers disappointed. The Little Friend was largely hyped on the back of Tart's 10 year absence since her debut and that period of absence should surely have produced an impressive work, shouldn't it? Not so, the book does have excellent detail and characterisation as previous reviewers have noted. However, Tart gets too involved with this art, which she appears to find easier than developing a cohesive storyline. As I approached the last hundred pages a cloud of depression enveloped me as it became clear that the author would either rush to conclude the novel or fail to conclude it at all. In the end she opted for the latter. Hely's outburst, Eugene's evolution into a more sinister Ratliff and the question of Harriet's own potential guilt as she copes with the possibility that she has erroneously identified her brother's assailant all leave too much to the reader. Donna Tart should go back to the shadows for another ten years but this time let someone talented proof read her new work before she let's the publishing world hype it.

Confused genre, 19 Jul 2003
Not having read "The Secret History", this was my initiation to Ms. Tartt.

The novel starts with excellent character development and background history. However, you keep expecting the plot to kick in, but all you get is MORE character development and MORE background. In the end, I only carried on with the book because I was committed, being half way through it. How mad was I then, to realize that the book has no definitive ending!

Ms. Tartt seams to have confused her genre; either write a "character development" novel, or a "mystery/suspense" novel, but don't try to do both in one book, because you will end up with neither.

I am now discouraged to buy her first novel, which, however, I understand is much better. Extremely disappointing - one for the boot sale.

A potential great film, 14 Jul 2003
Although not as brilliant as The Secret History Tartt’s second novel is in its way a good read. Characterisation is the main pull of this book and there is a wonderful cast of eccentric doddery great aunts, white trailer trash, a second hand car salesman, a somnolent sister and born again Christian preachers with a penchant for snakes.

Harriet the 12-year-old protagonist is on the verge of adulthood and for all her book-learned knowledge and intellect the world of adults is still a mystery. Rather than being a standard whodunnit murder story, this novel is more an exploration of growing up and the complexities and responsibilities of adulthood.

Gripping, dull and humorous by turns, the one thing that struck me throughout was the feeling that in the right hands The Little Friend could be one of the rare occasions when the film might be better than the novel. Anyone know if the Cohen brothers are free?

A UNIQUELY PERSONAL READING, 26 Nov 2002
Donna Tartt, novelist, essayist, critic, and author of the blockbuster "The Secret History" brings a uniquely personal understanding to her reading of "The Little Friend."

A richly imagined story of familial ties and the pursuit of truth, Ms. Tartt's latest offering is sure to bring additional plaudits. No doubt, readers and listeners will find it well worth the decade long wait since Ms. Tartt's superlative debut novel. When asked why it took her ten years to write "The Little Friend," the author replied in part, "There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from the conveyor belt every couple of years. But it's for every writer to decide his own pace, and the pace varies with the writer and the work.......When I was young, I was deeply struck by a piece of advice that John Gardner gave to beginning writers: ‘Write as if you have all eternity.' This is the last thing a publisher or an agent or an accountant would tell you, but it's the best advice in the world if you want to write beautiful, well-made books. And that's what I want to do. I'd rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones."

It would seem that Ms. Tartt is incapable of penning even a mediocre phrase, as her latest story attests - it is compelling, and memorable.

Nine-year-old Robin Cleve Dufresnes is found dead, hanging from a tupelo tree in his family's yard. Harriet was a mere baby when her brother's body was discovered, and his killer has never been found.

The boy's death virtually destroyed his mother who has turned inward and become a recluse; his father disappeared from the community where this tragedy occurred. Thus, Harriet and another sister, Allison, have been left to grow very much on their own. Their lives have been overseen by a black maid and a coterie of female relative, including a stern grandmother.

Twelve-year-old Harriet determines to catch her brother's murderer, deciding that it is Danny Ratliff. After all he comes from a family of down-at-the-heels criminals. Harriet and her good friend, Hely, begin to stalk the Ratliffs, a tactic which leads them into great danger.

Set in 1970s Mississippi, "The Little Friend" underscores the author's considerable gifts, not the least of which are her command of language, elegant prose, and mastery of suspense.

The (all too) Secret History, 13 Aug 2005
A stunning debut, propelling Ms.Tartt into the impossible reaches of being my championed author: over a smatter of proven accomplished writers; in just one offering. This is possibly THE greatest novel to fall under my eyes.
Tartt managed to instill a revival of my love for reading with a refreshed angle and entrancing style: If you read the first paragraph, you'll read the whole book. Nowt short of brilliance. You have to know this, but there's only one way to find out...
Worthy of your hard-earned.

The Best there is, 13 Mar 2001
I received this book a couple of years ago, and still it is a treasure to me. You read it the first time and you think what a good book, what a great plot, when you read it the second time you realize it is a masterpiece.The whole murder mystery set in a college background with the strange and spooky rituals done in ancient greek literature make this a complete novel, be sure to have a couple of days off because you wont stop reading before you have finished it completely

A Nice Surprise, 22 Oct 2008
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.

To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.

Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.

Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.

One of the worst books I have ever read!, 19 Oct 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!

Approaching the inevitable peripeteia, 04 Oct 2008
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw

my special book, 09 Sep 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.

Wonderful, 11 Aug 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.

It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.

The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.



The Secret History (Penguin Celebrations) , 04 Nov 2008
I was recommended to read this by a work colleague and by my partner. So I thought, this will be a great read - i'm sorry, it really wasn't.

The book is eons long, but not a lot happens, the characters are interesting but not so interesting they could hold my attention for the length of this book. The story line was pretty dull. Summed up (by me) as 'students kill a man and then one of their own'. Thank you, that's just not enough to hold my attention.

Written in a flowery style - author obviously knows her words and love to describe things, I should be impressed, but i'm sorry, i'm not.

A little lost, 13 Jul 2008
Donna Tartt has chosen some tough acts to follow with her second book: William Faulkner, Harper Lee, Carson McCulloch, some of the greats of literature have set their work in America's South and at least two have chosen as their subject girls on the edge of puberty. Perhaps it's unfair to judge Tartt's book against these, but the comparisons are inevitable. Having said that, she does a fair job. The strength of her writing (as with many female authors in my opinion) is her eye for detail. She recreates a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, right down to the boiled peanuts and Country Club swimming pool, the smiley face t-shirts and Wacky Pack stickers. The trap of such writing, entertaining though it is, is that the setting becomes the story.

The book concerns the Cleve family, in particular Harriet Cleve Dufresne, a clever neglected child of Southern gentility on their uppers. Harriet's older brother, Robin, is found dead when Harriet is a baby, a blow from which Harriet's mother and her marriage never really recover. Harriet resolves to find the killer of her brother (although we never discover if his death is nothing more than a tragic accident) and the story takes us through the summer of her investigation and the consequences of this for a family of backwoods drug dealers, the Ratliffs.

And that's really all there is to it. If you enjoy reading meticulous descriptions of the houses of each of Harriet's many aunts, exchanges between Harriet and her devoted follower Hely, the bizarre family life of the Ratliff brothers and their permanently-on-the-edge-of-death grandmother, Gum, then this is the book for you. In my opinion, these kinds of pen portraits, undriven by the necessities of a plot, work best when they are refined and condensed, a la Carson McCullers for example. Otherwise, it can become a pointless ramble the reader has to wade through to get to the next event. This might matter less if all the description had some thematic point - to illustrate the huge social changes that were going on at that point in American history for example - but the town, Alexandria, and the Cleves exist in a vacuum, so the exquisite detail just become an end in itself.

In summary: well written, entertaining, but lacks edge and clarity through weak plotting and lack of thematic development.


a dreadful, turgid, overwritten bore of a book, 04 Jan 2008
Need one say more? This is the slowest and most boring book ever written. The Secret History was a treat, but this? Complete trash. The main premise is absurd, the characters feeble, the eventual denouement (if one can call it that) is weak and not in the slightest bit interesting or exciting (especially if you've waded through hundreds of waffling pages to get to it). Everything about the Little Friend is poor. I rarely write a review, but simply had to save other readers from wasting time and money on this sprawling and awful book. Shame on you, Ms Tartt, for writing it (doesn't your computer have a delete key?) and shame on the publishers (and editor) for letting it out.

The Little Friend, 28 Sep 2007
Having adored Tartt's first book, The Secret History, it was in an apoplexy of excitement that I opened her second. At first the rich, multi-layered text (poetic, never patronizing) didn't disappoint. The story on the other hand, did. Wandering aimlessly between characters, The Little Friend unfolds on the weakest of plots barely and irritatingly sustained through a multiplicity of changing points of view. It's hard to understand whose story this is, and even harder to care. The beautifully crafted sentences simply can't sustain the lack of substance. Sadly this novel has all the signs of having been the product of perspiration rather than inspiration.

Good but a little long, 21 Sep 2007
I found this not as great as 'the secret history; but a worthwhile read all the same. Tartt draws you in too a close knit almost claustrophic world. The middle bit does drag but it really does pick up towards the end.

Enjoyable look at small town life, 27 Jul 2007
Having enjoyed reading A Secret History, it was with great relish that I opened The Little Friend and was not disappointed. The book opens with the death of Robin Cleve on a warm summers day, and the trigger for the main part of the book is the decision of his sister, Harriet, twelve years later, to find who did it.

Harriet's determination is in part predicated by the dysfunction she sees in her own family and which she blames on Robin's death the fact the killer apprehended. Tart has created a formidable character in Harriet, and whilst she is not physically attractive, she has a moral doughtiness that is appealing. In some passages it is easy to forget that she is only twelve years old, and my only real criticism of the book is whether she is capable of her actions in the last portion of the book.

Tartt rambles through Harriet's journey, in a way that allows her to introduce us to a large cast of characters whom we come to know (and in the case of the aunties, love) and there are many diverting side stories within the book. In many ways the book is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird, where the plot serves as a device to introduce a wider range of characters and look at the way small rural communities fit together.

There are odd scenes of comedy, but Tartt has succeeded in creating a claustrophobic book - whilst reading it I felt I should be sitting in a dusty lane somewhere. Her writing is a joy to read - her prose is beautifully descriptive and the pace of the book also succeeds in adding to the claustrophobia. There are some wonderfully written scenes, and whilst there are many unresolved issues at the end, for the reader, as for the characters, it is the journey that is more important than the end point.

Haunting, vivid, unputdownable, 11 Aug 2004
Excellent. The characters, the town, the society, are depicted beautifully, the whole atmosphere "breathes", you feel the heat, you share the characters'feelings, you have to laugh with the incredible squalor and horror of the Ratliff family, you have to love little Hely who is so much "inferior" to the nightmarish little girl, Harriet. I was steeped in the story, the marvellous writing.
BUT the Bloomsbury paper back edition I read, had very small print,as a result I had to read the whole book using a magnifying lense! Isn't there any hardcover with decent print left?

Afrikaner's view on excellent read, 02 Feb 2004
There is nobody , in my opinion , that uses the english language in a more beautiful way than D. Tartt . She really introduced me to the english language as a thing of beauty . It is obvious that she knows the meaning of words in their exact settings . As in an enormous and colourfull painting , I can still see every character and scene cleary . I can hear and smell the whole community . In my opinion the death of Robin was an accident . A child playing with a rope . That is what the eldest daughter saw . I have become a big fan of D. Tartt , and will reread ' The Little Friend ' , rather than 'The secret History ' .

Disappointed!, 09 Sep 2003
I agree whole heartedly with the previous negative review, although I have also read the Secret History. The contrast between these two novels should leave all readers disappointed. The Little Friend was largely h