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Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Pieni elämä by Hanya Yanagihara

403 reviews

unpetitchat's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Saddest book I’ve ever read

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yeldah_reedz's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I want to start by saying that I would genuinely never recommend this book to anyone. Since everyone reacts to trauma in different ways I don’t want to be responsible for the way someone reacts while reading this book. A Little Life is a beautifully told story following a group of four best friends and their lives after college. I don’t want to say much more about the story since I believe it would be better to just jump in with little to no expectations. However, if you are planning to dive into this long story (over 800 pages), I will ask that you look up and read all the trigger warnings before opening the cover to the first page. 
I can fully say that some parts of this book were the most disturbing and disgusting things I have ever read and made me feel physically ill. There were points in the book where I had to set it down for a bit and take a break before continuing. Even though so much of this book is deeply tragic, it keeps the reader hoping for more and wishing for all the pain and suffering to end for some of the characters. There were happier parts and I did end up laughing while my eyes scanned through some of my favorite parts. The end of the book was bittersweet, tender and felt gratifying despite everything else that happened. The title means more after you read the whole book and the axiom of equality lives in my heart now. Sometimes you expect x from a book, but end up getting x. This book shows how x=x outside of mathematics. Hanya Yanagihara has written an exquisite story that tugs on the readers heartstrings in many more ways than expected. I see this story in the world around me and it feels like I have a fresh brain but in an older and wiser way. I’m not sure what else to say about this book since it left me nearly speechless the moment it ended.
I would just say, read it with caution and don’t read it when you’re in any kind of bad mood since the subjects it contains are quite dark/heavy. 
Woop! Woop! Tragic books for the win, am I right?

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bakenjanereads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Read at your own risk. This is a heavy book with tons of triggers.

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syellico's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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sleepdeprivation's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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dejanira's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Go the therapy or draw 25

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yoyojojofosho's review against another edition

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reflective sad
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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jochaatuu's review against another edition

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Author gave the main character every traumatic experience possible. 

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gabriel_dingle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A Little Life is a profound and brutal novel about childhood trauma and its lifelong consequences. Although slow, detailed, and lengthy, this novel will leave you yearning for more, and hesitant to leave the characters, which you got to know so intimately, behind, and your heart feeling as though it has been squished in a hydraulic press. This has easily become one of my favourite novels of all time, and is truly a modern classic, a necessary read.

P.S. please make sure to check content warnings from reviewers. The content warnings on the main StoryGraph page for this novel are lacking, and many people understate just how upsetting this novel can be.

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sshaw86's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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