A Little Life

There are so many things I loved about this book, countered by so many things I hated. Yet, the beauty I saw in my head in the “happy years” and the emotions I felt, terrible and tragic, overcame the things I disliked about it. Leaving me thinking about this book nearly every single hour, every single day for the past month. Coincidentally, falling in love with it. Whilst horribly missing and feeling a sense of loss towards Willem and Jude. Though I thought some characters were 1 dimensional, I believe their two amazing characters had so much depth and personality that they shown against the others, making it worth while. I think some minor descriptions got repetitive and sometimes boring, which made it harder to get through the 814 pages, but in the end it was worth it. The final chapter was absolutely amazing, I have never read something that made me this emotional, all whilst tying up the text perfectly. I was able to recognize the many different meanings behind the title of the book, which was a heartbreaking experience for some of them, but I always love figuring out the titles significance to the text itself. Which this book does very well on. Now some reviews hate on this book for its continuous graphic content and repetitive unlikeness of Jude’s life. However I never felt this way. Sure it was hard to get through many sections about Jude’s past. But I don’t think they are used just to make us feel terrible. The created a story one in which we saw Jude carrying such weight for the 53 years of his life. One which that affected everything he did and everyone we loved. It did this in a way I haven’t seen a book do. And with the unlikeness of the events all happening in his life. Sure maybe every horrible thing that happened to him seemed unbelievable because how many traumatic things can happen to one guy? But how I saw it was, these things DO happen to people. R*pe, p*dophilia, s*x trafficking, kidnapping, car accidents, abusive relationships, loss, depression; and all of the other things Jude experienced. It’s not like someone who faces trauma in their life, only has one event happen and the rest of their lives runs smoothly. I also saw how Jude could be representing so many different people and different life experiences. For this reason this didn’t make it unbelievable to me in any way. The only way it is if you stay for narrowed and head on with the book, rather then thinking about bigger context; the issues in todays world, what people experience, and how he was a representation, representing all sorts of people in one character. It’s if I saw Jude as almost a metaphor. People also disagreed on the other extremity’s that took place, but on the other spectrum; success. All of the characters have an arch in their careers and all become super successful in their particular field. Even Jude, although he has had set back after set back. I think if the author had given Jude a mediocre life, or not have found his friends, and Harold and Julia, his adoptive parents, his career and life, he would have not made it as long as he did. Because mind me again, these things do happen to people, and are very hard to overcome. So Yanahigara, of course gave him this beautiful life, and all of his friends one. Too. But let’s not say it was without struggle. Jude struggles everyday with trauma and sadness, topped with self hatred, Jb struggled with a drug addiction, Willem didn’t get gig after gig and wondered about his competence, Malcolm didn’t make it for a while, under the pressure of his parents. Like real life there were setbacks for all of them, before they made it big. And what is unrealistic about making it big, when one you are passionate about what you love and two you went to a good university? I think it’s unfair to these people’s characters to say their lives became unrealistic either on the traumatic aspect or the success. Because success does in-fact happen for people too. Sure both may have seem over the top, but I also never felt this way. It was if the book was written to have two extremes on the spectrum, and show that even a beautiful life that is so big and grand full of everything anyone could want, received and deserved, not given, cannot heal such trauma from one’s life, making only but a little life.

While there were what at times felt like overly detailed, distracting descriptions of the seemingly mundane minutia, I marveled at Yanaghara's prose; I felt like I was transported inside her head as she must have been in a hypnotic trance channeling this beautiful and devastating tale. It's an epic story of friendship and the many expressions of deep love, and of unimaginable abuse and the deepest resulting scars - seen and unseen. Yanagihara shows us how love and friendship can truly transform our lives but healing can only come from inside the heart of the wounded. Every one of these characters will forever be a part of me and I will miss them as I move on to my next read.

"A Little Life: A Novel" is one of the most challenging books I have ever read. I absolutely loved it and think it is one of those novels that you can never completely shake. I read it in December, but wanted to wait a few months before I reviewed it so I could be more objective. I put the book down when I was halfway through it, determining I couldn't read one more second of abuse or self mutilation. I couldn't stop thinking about the lead character Willemstad though, and the next night I read the rest of the book without putting it down until I finished. I cried for two hours straight after I read the last page. This book deals with love, loss, child abuse, and friendship. It also deals with several themes I'm still thinking about: The unfairness of life, how life is all about the casting ----the parents you get in this life you don't get to choose, and how redeeming just one person's love can be to someone. I'd give this five stars, but I couldn't recommend it to anyone. I think reading the reviews and making your own choice about this violent, very tough to read book is the thing to do. I'm forever changed by reading it, but don't think I could ever read it again. The good: This is the story of Jude, Willem, Andy, and JB. They were friends at school and remain close for many years. Jude is very haunted by his past, which he refuses to talk about with anyone. The book slowly reveals the utterly severe and traumatic abuse Jude endured for years. You grow to care very much for Jude, his charismatic best friend/love Willem, and his attempts to put his past behind him and believe he is worthy of Willem's love. The writing is first class and novels that span many years of time are especially hard to do well. Riveting and powerful, you will never forget this book. The Not So Good: It is over 700 pages and a lot of that is the abuse of a child and/or someone harming themselves. It is so detailed in the abuse that it was hard for me to read a book for a month after I read this one. I read a book a week normally, but this one is tough to shake. The book starts out focusing on all four men, but JB and Andy become much less visible later in the story. "A Little Life" is a perfectly named book. It focuses, much like "The Fault in Our Stars,"on the fact that a life doesn't have to be big or publicly celebrated to be meaningful. One person can change your life. This book is brutal and not for the faint of heart, but I am very glad I read it.

I haven’t read the entire book yet but so far so good. It was well packaged and the book has 0 damages

First things first, I think this is the best written book I've ever read (maybe that doesn't say a lot because I mostly read YA romances or thrillers - but still, the writting on this book is amazing and anyone can attest to that). Second, oh where to begin... I can see why people either hate or love this book. In life, you encounter people with different approaches to life - some may choose to look at the positive side of things, others get a little stuck on the negatives - with this book is no different. Yes, there's a sequence of tragedies and inimaginable horrors and you can get stuck on that, but, like myself, you can extract SO MANY great things from this book, I chose to look at it as story about love (and not necessarily romantic love). The author managed to put into words thoughts that I had throughout my life about relationship, friendship, adulthood, parenthood, death and, as a lawyer, even the law. All the characters are well built, even if you don't go too deep in their past, there's background enough to understand why they are the way they are, why they struggle with what they struggle. I went in prepared to cry, but by the last page I was sobbing so hard I felt like I was going to throw up. Since then I carry the characters close to my heart and think about them every single day. I'm grateful for the opportunity to know their story. Jude, you will stick with me forever.

The spine was damaged when it arrived

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