It took me a couple of months to read this novel, as I own the hardcover edition and I was in the midst of caring for a newborn. It's not easy to juggle the two! I came to relish my evenings and occasional nap times reading Yanagihara's tome, and often my husband would find me on the verge of tears or blowing my nose on the couch with the book open on my lap. It's not even the saddest revelations that made me cry; much of the time it was the descriptions of happy events that did me in. I cared for these characters so much that when fortunate things would come about for them, I sometimes wept.

I think of the book's central character, Jude, often, even a few weeks after completing the book. Jude and Harold and Willem and Andy. And JB and Malcolm. A novel full of men I endeared: definitely rare for me. I was a little confused at first as to where this novel would lead, but it definitely took focus as it localized on Jude. The mystery around him had me turning the pages, and sometimes I wish I hadn't learned the extent of his trauma... much like his friends felt when it was revealed to them as well. There are a lot of depressing topics within, and this novel is definitely not for everyone, but I felt like Yanagihara treated her characters compassionately and their flaws could be anger-inducing but she conjured such empathy for their pain that I came to understand things from their perspectives. I was happy when success and good things came to them, and I was gutted when terror hit. To be so enraptured by a novel and its characters doesn't happen often, and I miss these men already, but I was glad the author chose to show the trajectory of their lives to the long extent that she did.

It's a completely devastating novel. And I loved it.