Top 16 Books Like The Secret History Updated 04 /2024

From Flatiron Books and M.L. Rio comes on this list of books like The Secret History.

Actors' lives begin to imitate art when the lead actor in a college production of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" is killed off.

A well-written and gripping homage to the stage, If We Were Villains has been named one of Bustle's Best Thriller Novels of the Year.

One of the most interesting and unusual approaches to the subject of rivalry.

I had never reread a book until recently. How can I waste time reading the same book over and over when there are so many other books I haven't read? It's become My Year of Rereading, but we'll get to that later.) Of the few books I had read multiple times, The Secret History stands out. Since its release in 1992, I've read it once a year. For those of you keeping track at home, that's now 26 times.)

I was 16 years old when I first read The Secret History, and it had a profound impact on my life and outlook. In this lush and sinister novel full of drugs and sex and murder and love committed by six people my age or younger who had only recently been liberated from their captivity, I found myself. Donna Tartt, on the other hand, made being a conflicted new adult seem sexy and intriguing. I couldn't wait to experience the angst of being a newly-minted adult! I've never had new-adult problems this interesting or exciting.

As a book recommendation specialist, I'd say The Secret History is the most frequently requested read-alike. There are a few books that entertain me in the same way as this one, and I will read anything that can be compared to it. There are a few books out there that are trying to be just like it.

If you're looking for a book with a similar atmosphere to The Secret History, look no further than these eight suggestions.

Black Chalk by Christopher Yates

At the beginning of the year, six students at Oxford University become fast friends and begin playing a game of dare or consequences, which begins as harmless fun but quickly escalates until one of them is dead. All of the survivors will reunite for one final game years later as broken adults still haunted by what happened.

Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan

After sneaking into an abandoned prison in 1980, six college students discover that the building may not have been completely abandoned, and they find themselves trapped inside. Then came the tragic end to the story. One of the students, who is now a celebrity chef, is arrested decades later after new evidence of what happened that night emerges. However, she has her own secrets to hide, so she can't tell him the truth about what happened that night.

Confessions by Kanae Minato, Translated by Stephen Snyder

As a twist on the "oops, someone died because we did" storyline, the victim's mother is out to get revenge on the students who caused her son's death. When Yuko's four-year-old daughter was killed by students at the middle school where Yuko taught, her life was shattered. Then she's going to give one final lesson to her students...

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

While attending the Heart Lake School for Girls as a young girl to escape a tragedy in her hometown, Jane Hudson was shocked to learn that year that three of her fellow students had died. Despite her best efforts to start over for her young daughter two decades later, Jane is welcomed back to the school as a Latin teacher. However, the lake seems to recognize her and is eager to share its secrets with her.

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley

Read this classic about an early 20th-century boarding school student who carries letters for two forbidden lovers if you liked the story of love and betrayal in The Secret History. As Marion and Theo's postman, Leo takes great pride in his job, but the gravity of his predicament and the guilt he feels for aiding their secret romance will lead to his downfall. If Atonement and The Secret History were to have a child, the result would be something like this.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pesshl

Blue van Meer, a wealthy, eccentric teen, has a hard time making friends and staying in school. When she transfers to a school in North Carolina and meets a group of students known only as the Bluebloods, everything changes. Even though the film studies professor keeps an eye on the group, her suicide reveals some disturbing truths. As far as I'm concerned, this one is the closest thing to The Secret History I've ever seen.

Perfect Days by Raphael Montes

This is not for the faint of heart, but if you enjoyed The Secret History's dark, Talented Mr. Ripley-like atmosphere (and aren't too scared of gore), you might enjoy this disturbing tale of a brilliant Brazilian medical student who kidnaps a beautiful woman he believes is meant to be his life's love.

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

Iris and Eden Bellwether, twins studying medicine at King's College in Cambridge, intrigue Oscar Lowe, a fellow student. As soon as he discovers that they are part of a group at the school conducting a series of disturbing experiments, Oscar's joy at their friendship quickly turns to fear.

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

The author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero never ceases to astound and terrify us with his brilliant and incisive dissection of the modern world. Our celebrity-obsessed culture is amplified tenfold in Bret Easton Ellis' latest, most ambitious and engrossing novel.

Model Victor Ward, complete with six-pack abs and all the right friends, is photographed all over 1990s Manhattan with people he doesn't know. As he prepares to open NYC's trendiest nightclub, he's living with one model and having an affair with another. Finally, it is time to move on. It isn't the future he had in mind, however.

When Bret Ellis gets to the heart of the matter, we get to see what we've always suspected was lurking beneath the surface of his fiction. In Glamorama, we see the intersection of fame, fashion, terror, and mayhem, and how it all begins to resemble our own lives.

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