A Little Life

2.5 stars. I will start with the good, because I want this review to be fair. There were good things about this book. The best thing for me was the writing itself. Funnily enough, I found it a bit stilted and sparse in the beginning and almost put the book down because of it. But eventually, it became clear just how talented of a writer Yanagihara really is. Her way with words is simply incredible. I will also say that the book is compelling, and I was rarely bored. I did care about the characters, and I felt a lot during the course of the story.

However (and this is a really big “however”), I would not actually recommend this book. It is difficult to go into why without spoilers, so if you want the reasons, look at the top negative reviews. They contain a lot of valid points.

The main thing I want to mention is that the messaging that surrounds this book extremely misleading. It is NOT “the next great gay novel” unless you equate being gay with suffering. It is not, in my opinion, even about the four friends, as we are promised. It's about two of the four friends, with the third contributing occasional drama in the background to further the pair's story, and the fourth basically forgotten after the first few chapters. (He's still mentioned, but he has no story, no relevance, no growth. He's a cardboard cutout that happens to design buildings.)

It is, basically, about a man carrying horrible trauma from his childhood. Even the relationship between Jude and Willem takes a backseat to Jude's trauma. There are occasional peeks into the lives of the others (especially in the beginning, when the author is keeping Jude mysterious by withholding his perspective from us), but this is the main focus.

If you think 750 pages of misery (with very occasional, very minimal bouts of happiness sprinkled within) sounds like a great way to spend your time, go for it! If, however, you're just curious about the hype, I would advise skipping it. Read Song of Achilles if you want to feel lots of emotions and cry over gays.

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If you are considering reading A Little Life, please know that it comes with a long list of very dark trigger warnings, including extremely graphic depictions of self-harm.