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A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
 

A group of four college students, Jude, Willem, Malcolm, and JB, from being broke, make their way into the world as independent wealthy adults but their entire lives revolve around Jude in every facet. Their relationships deepen over a decade through a string of life events with tragic histories to unravel. A secret hidden, wealth and fame gained, old friendships kept—this story digs deep into how their fates enmesh and leave readers in awe and a flood of tears around them.


I am writing this long-ass blog post because I wished someone had told me what this book was dealing with, not just saying ‘Watch out, there are many triggers.’ or ‘This book is for you if you are an emotional wretch,’ before I started reading it.


Coming up with a review for this book was not easy like I thought it would be because I loved this book, but I also don’t recommend it.


Here I am trying my best anyway—


I started reading it in November and since then; I have had an on and off relationship with this book for over two months. In between that, I had gone through several depressive phases, not to forget the existential crisis, mood swings, and emptiness that came with it.


People are complex at their best then how come Jude ends up with only loving and caring people around him in his fifties, people who would trade their souls to die in the place of him. I am not being insensitive or ignorant about Jude’s past life but Hanya’s decision to make her characters two-dimensional baffled me, which I realized only after I finished reading it.

I questioned my social life— What did I do wrong to end up with a maximum of only two friends? What is the point of living after having no friends and not so supportive family? Why does life hate me and why does everything go wrong?
  • She never mentioned the reason their friendship deepened. We don’t know why they love each other. We just know they love each other.
  • Those who loved and served Jude were good people and those who didn’t, were bad.
  • In most of the places, even with a thick book like this, she left important pieces of stuff to ‘tell’ but never ‘showed’. 
  • They all sounded fifteen, even after fifty. There were developments in their career and wealth, but their characters didn’t age with them at all.

This doesn’t mean I didn’t love the book but I didn’t like so many things. My take-away was ‘kindness’ and how it can impact human lives. I understood Jude’s complicated relationships with his predators and toxic partners. I sympathized with him a lot in many aspects than I could agree. Hanya’s writing was so emotional that I couldn’t put this book down and move on with my life, even though I was having a hard time grasping the story and accepting the plot. She is a brilliant writer. Anyone can see that from how intricately she plays with readers’ feelings throughout the story. But she went a little overboard in bringing out the emotions, and it felt like torture if not a serial killer series. 


I also didn’t like the way she dealt with mental illness. The way she said it was like Jude’s mental illness was man-made after all the extent she had gone to break him since childhood. She was wary and ignorant of psychiatrists and their treatments, but she glorified how everyone who cared for him went to the extent of blaming themselves, torturing and sacrificing their lives for his mental wellness, but never did they do anything extensively to cure him or relieve him of his pain. 


Of course, they were ready to offer help, but they were humans too after all. Also, it was almost as if nothing beyond their personal lives were happening out in the world and nothing affected them. They were living happily in their cocoon, but also not really happy. There was no hope and no point in this book’s existence. You won’t miss anything even if you don’t read it. In fact, you will only save yourself from unwanted stress and tears.


Those who recommended/go on recommending this book to others and not verbally saying what are the type of triggers readers can expect are being insensitive and should stop doing that. I wouldn’t recommend this to any of my close friends or people who have had traumatic episodes in their lives. I don’t want them to feel the pain the way or more than I did. The graphic contents repelled me in ways I can’t explain.


This is why I am going to leave the triggers you can expect in this book here and then it’s up to you to decide whether you want to read it or not.


(Note: Trigger warnings are not spoilers. It’s always best to consider it from the view of people who get triggered by certain things, and it’s not safe to shove this book on their face asking them to read.)


Trigger Warnings Before Reading A Little Life:


Graphic descriptions of —

  • self-mutilation every ten pages
  • extensive discussion of sexual abuse 
  • rape
  • torture 
  • violence 
  • verbal and physical abuse 
  • depiction of self-harming behavior 
  • several suicidal attempts
  • eating-disordered behavior 
  • death of a closed one 
  • PTSD 
  • pedophilia 
  • child predators 
  • violent gay psychopath
  • mental illnesses

I want to end this by saying I am not against reading about long mundane activities and sad stories. I love them when they are done subtly. The fact that I was not expecting these triggers made me go through some depressive episodes and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, not even my sworn enemies. This is also by no means I am asking you to not read this book because reading a literary piece is always open for opinions and debates.


Books like this should be out there, but they are not for everyone.