A Little Life

No puedo creer que lo terminé, vengo leyendo a estos personajes desde enero y ya los sentía tan cercanos que el último 20% del libro me destrozó, nunca leí un libro que se sintiera tan real, tan humano, que cuente las cosas de una manera tan peculiar pero que se sienta como escuchar a un amigo contarte una historia (una con bastante tristeza). El audiolibro de Oliver Wyman es el mejor que escuché, expresa perfectamente todas las emociones de los personajes y me hizo muchísimo más fácil la lectura al ser un libro tan largo. Fue tan doloroso como todo el mundo dice que es, pero aún así tuve una buena experiencia y terminé el libro sintiendo una gran empatía por las personas que pasan a diario por cosas como las que se abordan acá, y, aunque sea, con un poco más de comprensión acerca de estos temas, que no deben ser nada fáciles de plasmar en un libro, y Hanya–haya sido demasiada tragedia o no, eso ya depende de la opinión de cada lector–siento que lo hizo muy bien y se tomó el tiempo de ahondar en los sentimientos de sus personajes, sobre todo de Jude, de una forma en la que su dolor y sus sentimientos traspasaban las páginas y se hacían nuestros, no me topé en mi vida con muchos libros que logren esto y me parece importante que un libro con estos temas esté teniendo tanta visibilidad, porque, aunque a algunos les parezca que está mal tratado y a otros les encante, genera una conversación necesaria para nuestra sociedad y nuestros vínculos con las personas que nos importan, y quizás también con personas que no conozcamos tan bien pero que necesiten ayuda, y tal vez con un mínimo gesto podamos ayudar un poquito a alguien que esté pasando por un mal momento. Uno de los libros que más me impactó y estoy agradecida de haber conocido a sus personajes y su historia.

“...things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.”

“It is also then that I wish I believed in some sort of life after life, that in another universe, maybe on a small red planet where we have not legs but tails, where we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, composed of trillions of molecules of protein and sugar and all one has to do is open one's mouth and inhale in order to remain alive and healthy, maybe you two are there together, floating through the climate. Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor's house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor's leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn't only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.”

This was definitely a hard book to read. I spent so much time with it, because there were times that I couldn't read it, it's so difficult to go through with this book because it's painful most of the time to read it. I'm not really sure if I liked it, but at least I'm sure I didn't hate it.
Well, I really enjoyed the fact that it shows a relationship between men, and how they deal with their emotions and frustrations in life, there's nothing mystical about it, the book simply portraits the things that goes through one's head. But the main story we get the hold of is the one of Jude, and this is were the reading gets complicated, because Jude has to deal with a traumatic past, and all that's happened to him is thoroughly described and not only does he suffer as a child, but he suffers as an adult, even though he is rich and well accomplished. It was a hard one.

As someone whose self-professed taste in books is “very long bummers”, this feels like something I should have read ages ago. It's been out for nearly ten years now, so I have seen both the hype cycle and the backlash and after reading it I understand each of them. It tells the story of a group of four friends from college: Malcolm (an architect), JB (an artist), Willem (an actor), and Jude (a lawyer). When we first meet them, just a few years after they've graduated, they're all struggling to find their places in the world, striving for success while working to rise above their childhood demons. And no one has more childhood demons than Jude. This book has been called “trauma porn” as it relates to the life story Hanya Yanagihara creates for Jude, and it's not an unfair criticism. However bad you think it could be, it's worse. As a reader, I found the section in which Jude has been taken on the road by a quasi-parental figure who abuses him while claiming to love him (and does even worse than that), ping-ponging around the country in a series of motels, to be reminiscent of Lolita...but while Lolita leaves most of the actual crimes to the imagination and is narrated by the abuser, A Little Life brings it out into the open and is narrated by the abused. It's shocking, and horrifying, and not even the most shocking and horrifying thing to be recounted in the book's 800+ pages. But it's not all despair and unimaginable cruelty to children. Jude, and indeed all of his friends, find success. They find love. They have friendships that feel real, with periods of closeness and periods of estrangement. People care for each other and are kind to each other. They are happy sometimes, and sometimes not. Life is not just one thing, it's lots of different things, often at the same time, and I feel like this novel captured that beautifully. That being said, I do agree with some of the criticism. The level of trauma visited upon Jude becomes almost numbing in its depth. There is a lot of aspirational lifestyle content that got repetitive (especially, for me, the food, which is something I tend to find boring to read about). I don't think I could ever recommend this book to anyone. It needs just about every content warning possible. I can well understand why some people hate it. But I found it highly compelling and genuinely moving.

Just by how long it took me to read this book we can guess how much I liked it. I feel like I finished the book equivalent of one of those tumblr posts romantizising mental illness and excusing people's horrible behavior because they're sick.

What's sad is I thought I was going to love this book. How wrong was I?

Quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. But I did read the whole thing because it was almost unbelievably bad and I wanted to see if it might redeem itself. But no. It's florid and overwritten, with melodrama dripping from every page. The book sets an insurmountable record for the number of times the characters say “I'm sorry” to each other. They should be apologizing to the reader. There was almost nothing about the book that was even believable. It should have been titled “A Tedious Life.”

Parts of the book were soul crushing, parts were disturbingly annoying. The story is great, the writing above average, I would give it 5 stars had it not been for the self-sabotaging behaviour of the main character. I get the traumatic past and all the demons that kept haunting him until the end, but the fact that none of his friends or family were doing something significant about it, that's what I don't get.

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.

So glad it’s finally over. And so glad to have read it.

The first third was sublime. Truly sublime. Yanagihara writes exquisitely, both in tone and style: tremendous compassion and intelligence; beautiful language; fascinating variations in narrative style. Over and over I felt overwhelmed by her sensitivity and awareness. At one point I commented to a friend that it was like reading the NOT LIKE THIS section of a communication self-help book: tiptoeing around delicate subjects, talking across each other, never really Listening. My tone was admiring: only someone with awareness could write such painful examples of the ways we try but fail to connect with others.

The “painful” theme is developed in the next third, to a degree I found perhaps excessive but that could just be my privilege speaking. The final third, unfortunately, I was desensitized and just slogging through: okay, more suffering; okay, valuable insights on human behavior and relationships; repeat.

An observation I made: the book does not pass the Bechdel test. Seven hundred pages, and no two female characters speak to one another. Another observation: no man could possibly have written this book. Few men have the emotional range. And that leads me to my main gripe about the book: the motivations didn’t work, didn’t feel real. The book is primarily about male friendships, but increasingly the dynamics felt inexplicable and rang false. This was fine in the first third, but ultimately weakened the structure. Lesser gripes: too-pat development of the main characters’ lives, and breezy dismissal of what I consider uncomfortable moral questions.

Highly recommended, but with reservations. And with a warning: have a box of tissues nearby.

This is easily the best book I will never recommend to anyone. It was so real and vivid and beautifully written, but also intensely difficult to get through. The events that take place are so painful for the characters and so graphic in their description that I felt viscerally uncomfortable. While I understand they are supposed to be difficult and supposed to be painful, I also don't think it is something everyone needs to read nor should read. However, this book is so well-written and so human that it took my breath away. I read for hours on end, feeling deeply invested in the lives and traumas of these characters. Their thought processes, decisions, feelings, and actions were so thoroughly explained and described that each character felt so real. I loved this book, but it was also one of the most upsetting and depressing reading experiences. It's not an easy experience to explain.

Simply stunning, very emotional and at times draining. Sharp and witty, eloquent and Elogant.

This book and its ideas of love, friendship and reconciling the past is a staggering achievement. You will laugh, definitely cry and without doubt you'll care. I think that's where this book shines the most, you are invested, you care what decisions the characters make. You will at times even find yourself deep in thought pondering the emotional state and the choices of the characters. I feel like I have lived with these characters, they aren't just words on a pages, these people are in my heart and are known to me like the closest of friends.

I know this book will be with me, close to my heart for many years to come.

Wonderfully and beautifully, if not perfectly, written. Given the negativity around this book I was expecting a lot....more than what I got. While the ending is almost hilariously cruel, so is life. Life often makes me think that God proves His existence through His hate and our suffering. What I see is a bleak, fragment of a very real life, and a life that people have lived. And examples of very real sexualities, friendships, and relationships. People seem upset that the mains were not “gay”, or labeled. They were just human...and lived a life like humans do. And some people get abused, and some people get the short stick, and time does not heal all wounds.

This book had me bawling my eyes out at several points. It's a lamentation. A gratuitous stab to the heart.

But I wasn't convinced of Jude's utter hopelessness at the end and am actually pretty annoyed with how it resolved. However, given the uninterrupted torture of Jude's backstory, I really didn't expect anything different.

3.5 stars. I wanted to like this book so much, but was ultimately disappointed. It was great at first as I found myself drawn to the story and interested in all of the characters, their lives and interactions. About mid-point, however, the story started to drag. I found myself getting tired of the same emotional drama and just wanted the book to end.

There was beautiful writing and potential here, but overall I felt like the novel was overwritten and tedious. I would only recommend this book to literary fiction lovers who know what they are getting themselves into.