BOOK REVIEW: A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

*Lots of details, NO extensive spoilers*

[First Anchor Books Edition, 2015, Anchor Trade Paperback, Total number of pages: 816]

Genre: Fiction, Bildungsroman

Characters: There was a straightforward introduction into the characters of the novel, with adequate details for the reader to clearly understand the time, place, and proposition from the beginning of the story.

Main characters:

1. Jude St. Francis - main character, goes through a LOT of trauma, least character development

2. Willem Ragnarsson - second main character, closest to Jude, probably the most character development in my opinion

3. JB Marion - most likely the least mentioned character, not much character development but his limited presence in the book is very important

4. Malcolm Irvine - I see him as the "black sheep" in the group, he's the sweet one, good amount of character development. I could relate to him the most.

Content: Pain. Straight up pain. There is no easing into the content of this novel. READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. The content is extremely heavy, and even the trigger warnings will not prepare you to witness what you will when you pick it up. Dear God, I was not the same after reading this. I promise you will not come out the same way as when you went in.

There are sections in this novel that actively teach the reader how to do certain things... if you get what I am trying to say. It goes into the detail of how to do it, what you need to do it, when to do it, how often to do it, and even how to hide from others that you have done it. So again, READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS.

The explicit details hit you like a truck. And just as you think "oh okay its getting better", there's another truck waiting around corner to hit you again. It doesn't get better, it gets progressively worse with every page. Consider yourself warned.

A lot of people have said THAT much explicit content in the INTENSITY of detail Yanagihara chose to use was not necessary, because it's just traumatizing and not very meaningful. I disagree, however, because yes there is an extent to how much detail is considered "necessary" when describing such awful turn of events, but I feel like the book would not have been as memorable, important, or relatable to me as it is if the same intensity of detail was not included. I just can't imagine HOW Yanagihara could have sat there and written all of that, while coming out sane afterwards. I could never.

As a comparison to the intensity of explicit content, if you have red American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, the explicit content in A Little Life is 10x worse lol.

My Favorite Quotes (not really sure if favorite is the correct word here but you get the idea)

[I] LISPENARD STREET

- "'We don't get the families we deserve'" (pg. 19)

- "You spent so much time explaining yourself, your work, to others...that it was a relief to simply be with another person to whom you didn't have to explain anything" (pg. 34)

- "There was poetry on the subway...anger and beauty reduced to empty aphorisms" (pg. 43)

- "How did you know when to give up?...When did pursuing your ambitions cross the line from brave into foolhardy? How did you know when to stop?" [II] THE POSTMAN

- "But what was happiness but an extravagance, an impossible state to maintain, partly because it was so difficult to articulate?" (pg. 103)

- "He felt doped on sun and food and salt and contentment...what is going to happen to me? he asked the sea. What is happening to me?"

- "The hardest thing is not finding the knowledge...the hardest thing is believing it." (pg. 226)

- "The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are -- not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving -- and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad -- or good -- it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well." (pg. 240)

[III] VANITIES

- "how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn't friendship as good a relationship?... It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified" (pg. 257)

- "Are you happy?... I don't think happiness is for me. But it is for you, Willem" (pg. 264)

[IV] THE AXIOM OF EQUALITY

- "'The axiom of equality'... The axiom of equality states that x is always equal to x: it assumes that if you have a conceptual thing named x, that is must always be equivalent to itself...The person I was will always be the person I am, he realizes... And in that microsecond that he finds himself suspended in the air, between the ecstasy of being aloft and the anticipation of his landing, which he knows will be terrible, he knows that x will always equal x... x=x he thinks. x=x x=x" (pg. 385-386)

Concluding Thoughts: My personal rating for this novel is a 5/5. You might hate it, as many people do, or love it as I do. It is indeed an experience. There is no way you will NOT feel SOMETHING as you read it. It is definitely not to be taken with a grain of salt. I will remind you again to READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS before even thinking about buying it.

Let me know how you like it! My DMs are open for your thoughts. Definitely interested in reading the various reactions and commentary :)