What is A Little Life about?
A Little Life follows four college friends, Willem, JB, Malcolm, and Jude, as they build their lives in New York over three decades, bound together by their devotion to the brilliant but enigmatic Jude, a man haunted by unspeakable suffering.
Want to buddy read with me? Get your annotated book of A Little Life here
Hanya Yanagihara’s other works
A Little Life aside, Hanya Yanagihara is also known for:
My pre-reading thoughts
When I was asked to read it as part of a commission for an annotated book, I think I had the same reaction as everyone who's heard about this book: I was terrified. And for once, BookTok didn't lie to us.
My book review of A Little Life
Rating: 3/5 stars
A Little Life was really melodramatic. Absolutely everything is going wrong for everyone in this book. It's actually unbelievable. No one is that unlucky. If so, not in these proportions.
Adding that to the many useless flashbacks we had to go through, I get why some people call the book "trauma po*n ». Indeed, once the author established Jude had a terrible childhood, what was the point of putting this many harmful scenes through the whole book ? I especially think that way because of how well-written the book is. The author does an incredible job at depicting friendship, family, grief and suffering. She's so effective that I didn't get why we weren't going forward. Also, it would've made the book way shorter.
Besides, a minor thing that bothered me: we follow the lives of 4 characters and their friends, but we barely know in which period they are. It's like they are living in their own bubble, isolated from world events.
The fact that the author doesn't believe in therapy really shows in the resolution but also in the repetitiveness of the plot. Indeed, Jude doesn't try to get help in any form, so we end up in the same situations over and over again. I'm not saying it's not realistic because it is in some cases. However, at the end, you just feel like you've read a succession of horrible things for no reasons, since the main character had no chance to overcome anything in the first place.
My main issue with the book is basically my point about the flashbacks in it : what was the point ? Yes it was well-written, beautiful, but it's just depressing, not even hopeful in the slightest. It's like telling all the readers "if you are unwell, you'll never feel better. You might as well end your life now".
To conclude, I can't say it's a bad book. It's not. But it wasn't a pleasing experience either. I would've loved for it to have a purpose, to make these 800 pages of suffering (on my part and Jude's) worth it.
Want to buddy read with me? Get your annotated book of A Little Life here
Similar books to A Little Life
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Two childhood friends in Kabul, a devastating betrayal, and one man's decades-long quest for redemption; the same emotional intensity and weight of the past refusing to stay buried.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
A son writes a letter to his illiterate mother unpacking intergenerational trauma, addiction, and queerness.
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
A mother tries to understand the darkness inside her son after an unthinkable act of violence.
Have you read A Little Life? What did you think of it?
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