Is there an audiobook of The Secret History?

Yes. The Secret History has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Donna Tartt.

How long is the The Secret History audiobook?

The The Secret History audiobook runs 22 hr 3 min.

Is The Secret History on Kindle Unlimited?

No. The Secret History was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 31, 2026.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt book cover for the Book of the Day literary fiction book review

Our score

4.4/ 5

Excellent

Listen to The Secret History free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

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EDITION PUBLISHEDOctober 2011

PublisherViking

Genres

Fiction Literary Fiction Thriller

Themes

The seduction and danger of beautyGuilt and moral collapseBelonging and class outsiderhoodIntellect used to justify the unforgivable

The Secret History

Name: The Secret History
Price: 11.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt's The Secret History opens with a death and then makes you wait to understand it. It's a literary thriller about a clique of classics students at a New England college whose hunger for beauty hardens into something monstrous. Come for the intelligence and dread; stay for sentences that ache.

The Review

Our take

Tartt tells you what happens almost immediately. There's a body, a winter, a group of friends who did something terrible. The whole engine of the novel runs in reverse. Instead of a whodunit, it's a why, and then a what-comes-after. That choice is bold, and it works because the suspense never lived in the plot mechanics anyway. It lives in watching narrator Richard Papen, a working-class outsider from California, talk himself into a world he can't afford, morally or otherwise.

What makes this stick is the seduction. The small group of students who study ancient Greek under their elusive professor are insufferable in ways the book fully understands. They wear tweed, they drink too much, they speak in dead languages and pretend the twentieth century is beneath them. Tartt lets you feel the pull and the rot at the same time. You understand exactly why Richard wants in, and you can see the trap closing while he can't. That double vision is what the prose does so well: lush, precise, a little drunk on its own beauty, but always aware that beauty here is a kind of cover. (Tartt sets her Hampden in a fictional New England town widely read as a Vermont stand-in, though the book itself keeps the geography deliberately vague.)

The atmosphere is the real achievement. The cold, the candlelight, the specific dread of a small campus where everyone watches and no one says the truth out loud. Tartt is wonderful on guilt as a physical condition, the way it changes how people eat, sleep, and look at each other. The second half becomes a slow psychological unraveling, the friendships souring under the weight of what they share. The cold genius at the center of the group reads as genuinely unsettling, in part because the book refuses to fully explain him.

Thematically it's after big, uncomfortable things: the danger of worshiping beauty over conscience, the way intellect can be used to excuse almost anything, the loneliness of wanting to belong so badly you'll forgive monsters. It plays like Greek tragedy filtered through a 1980s liberal-arts campus, and it earns the comparison. Tartt also nails the particular vanity of clever young people convinced they've outgrown ordinary morality, and how that conviction comes due.

Why you should read

Readers who love dark academia and campus novels
Fans of slow-burn literary suspense over action-driven thrillers
Anyone who enjoys morally complicated, fascinating-but-unlikable characters
Readers drawn to atmospheric prose and Greek-tragedy structure

What to expect

The middle and back sections move slowly by design, so anyone expecting brisk thriller momentum should adjust their expectations going in
Nearly everyone in the cast is meant to be unpleasant company, and that can feel airless across a long book

A fair warning. This is long and lingers on purpose. I'd guess readers who want a tight, propulsive thriller will feel the back half drag, since it leans hard on alcohol, paranoia, and emotional disintegration rather than forward motion. And the characters are built to be hard to like, which over five-hundred-plus pages may test anyone who needs someone to root for. But if you're drawn to atmosphere, voice, and the slow architecture of moral collapse, that patience is the whole reward. This is a novel to sink into.

Reviewed by Avery · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.4/ 5

Excellent

Listen to The Secret History free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of The Secret History?: Yes. The Secret History has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Donna Tartt.
Listen to The Secret History free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the The Secret History audiobook?: The The Secret History audiobook runs 22 hr 3 min.
Is The Secret History on Kindle Unlimited?: No. The Secret History was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 31, 2026.
How much does The Secret History cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $11.99, Paperback $12.41, Hardcover $18.00. Prices as of August 27, 2026 at 3:45 AM EDT and may change.

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Common questions

What is The Secret History about?: Tartt tells you what happens almost immediately. There's a body, a winter, a group of friends who did something terrible. The whole engine of the novel runs in reverse. Instead of a whodunit, it's a why, and then a what-comes-after. That choice is bold, and it works because the suspense never…
Is The Secret History worth reading?: We scored The Secret History 4.4 out of 5. Donna Tartt's The Secret History opens with a death and then makes you wait to understand it. It's a literary thriller about a clique of classics students at a New England college whose hunger for beauty hardens into something monstrous. Come for the intelligence and dread…