"The Secret History" vs "If We Were Villains" (And Why You Should Read Both)
"It was Greek to me." - William Shakespeare (from "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar")
If you’ve read both of these books, you’ll know why I wrote the subheading as such. It’s related to both books; one follows the studies of Richard as he learns about the Greeks, while the other follows Oliver as he and his castmates attempt to put on Caesar as their fall show. Even though their majors are different, Richard and Oliver attend elite liberal arts colleges with a tight-knit group of friends. Both also witness the murder of one of the members of that group, and they may or may not be responsible. Since these books are similar in plot, it has caused many to pit them against each other. Now that I have read both, I can confidently say that I think comparing them is pointless. Let me explain.
**Quick note: If you haven’t read these books, don’t worry! I will keep this as spoiler-free as possible. Still, tread cautiously if you haven’t read them and hope to in the future!**
I read The Secret History first. It was a couple of months ago and I was on vacation when I started it. From the beginning, I was hooked. Donna Tartt’s lush descriptions of Vermont in autumn made me feel like I was there even though I was sitting outside up north and it was a hot and humid August. Richard, the main character was someone that I loved and hated; his self-deprecation and tangents of wondering what his purpose was in life were relatable and yet an ugly reflection in a mirror. I tore through it quickly, reading 50 to 60-page chapters in a day at times.
After I had finished The Secret History, feeling dazed, confused, and entranced by it, I picked up If We Were Villains, somewhat intentionally. I had heard about M.L. Rio’s novel in conversation with Tartt’s, and since I was on a dark academia kick after having finished The Secret History, I felt it would be an appropriate follow-up. Imagine how surprised I was when I read it expecting a story like The Secret History and didn’t find it to be the same.
In Rio’s novel, each character fits an archetype found in dramatic plays, often actually playing those roles in their school productions, and the book is split into five “acts,” the plot built much like a Shakespeare tragedy. The characters often speak in Shakespeare’s lines to each other and are as pretentious as ever. We rarely get interiority from Oliver, the protagonist, as we did with Richard in The Secret History. Even though he has the occasional intrusive thought that he is mediocre, he often observes those around him.
When looking at both of them next to each other, yes, they do appear similar. They both center on a group of college students who participate in another character’s death, are unable to separate their studies from real life, have several characters who are queer or queer-coded, and, heck, they both even have a main character named Richard (in If We Were Villains, it is one of the friends in the main group). But are they exactly the same? …No, not really.
For one, the styles of writing are very different from each other. Some may say that Tartt’s writing is superior, which in some ways it is with its long, beautiful, rambling passages (sometimes I wondered if Tartt was taking the time to prove she knew vast knowledge in a subject). But, similarly, If We Were Villains had great moments of suspense, and even some passages that threw me so off guard that I had to cover my mouth in surprise. So, I’m not trying to make the point that I think one style is better, rather, they approach the subjects of their novels differently.
There’s a whole list I could present with why they are fundamentally different:
We know at the very start who the victim is in The Secret History whereas we don’t know who the victim is until the fateful scene in If We Were Villains.
The tragedies are approached differently. In The Secret History, everyone is involved in the murder. In If We Were Villains, not everyone is involved, but everyone decides to be complicit.
The motivations for the murders are starkly different. In The Secret History, they kill to cover their tracks; in If We Were Villains, they kill because of their feelings towards the victim.
The teacher figure in The Secret History is much more influential than the teachers in If We Were Villains.
In If We Were Villains, there was a clear love triangle. In The Secret History, everyone seemed to be in love with each other.
I could go on.
If I’m being honest, I feel like the reason the two are constantly being compared is due to the success If We Were Villains gained within the booktok community on TikTok. Just because this book feels like The Secret History doesn’t mean it’s the only one that does. I just did a quick Google search and found several articles titled things like, “20 Books Like The Secret History.” They list books like Bunny by Mona Awad which centers on a girl being accepted into a highly selective MFA program at a New England school and being seduced by a clique in her fiction writing cohort, or Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates about Oxford students who watch their friendships unravel as they play an innocent game. There are Goodreads lists of that ilk, all talking about books like The Secret History in some aspect, whether it’s the tight-knit and selective group of friends, the dark academia aesthetic, or the thriller/suspense genre in a college setting. If We Were Villains isn’t the first to copy aspects of The Secret History, it’s just the most commercially successful.
It makes me beg the question: why compare? Why can’t you enjoy both? Or despise both if that’s your persuasion? I’ve come to a point in my life where I recognize that many pieces of art are influenced by things that came before them. It’s hard to find anything that is totally original anymore, and truthfully, you could argue that everything comes from something if you wanted to. I mean, I could make the argument that the movie Dead Poets Society existed before Tartt’s novel so I feel like her book is a rip-off. I know that that isn’t true, but do you get my point? That story is about an elite private school centered on a group of friends who unravel due to a teacher who makes them interested in poetry. Some aspects of it feel like The Secret History, but I’m not walking around saying one is better than the other. I can enjoy both because they share archetypes, plot devices, and thematic elements that I typically enjoy.
When it comes to recommending one over the other, I’d say read The Secret History first since that’s what everyone agrees is the source material for If We Were Villains. But don’t stop there, read M.L. Rio’s book afterward to form your own opinion! Maybe you’ll agree with me and find things you like about both. I’ll be curious to hear what you think. :)
-Lillian