Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

Ein wenig Leben by Hanya Yanagihara

130 reviews

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

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challenging dark sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I only started reading this because I wanted to see if it makes me cry. Spoiler alert!
It didn't
.  Don't get me wrong,
the ending is absolutely sad with how Jude had to get his leg amputated, and despite that he was living his best life with Willem only for Willem to die in an accident. Of course, not standing the lost, Jude decided to euthanize himself, Iassume.
Either way, I absolutely hated reading this book. I know, you might be wondering "tHeN wHy tHe hAEWLl diD yOu reAD iT?". Well...I spent a fuckton of my saved up allowance to buy this book so OBVIOUSLY I have to finish reading this 😁💢💢

Anyways, what I originally came here to say is that;
1. I think the author hates men so much that she didn't know any legal way to torture them, so she decided to write this book
2. All the characters suck and I hate every and each one of them (yes, some characters including Jude, Willem, Harold, etc...oh JB included too cause how can I forget that fuck?)
3. The ending was kind of sad (only at an atomic level, okay?), so I'll give .25 for that
4. The writing is godawful (I don't wanna be too mean about this cause beauty is in the eye of beholder and this is not my beauty)

Overall, I'm happy to end this journey and excited to move onto the next thing cause I know at least it's gonna be better than whatever this was..

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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: Complicated

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challenging dark sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I want to give this book a hug and thank it. But…
However much I wish it ended at The Happy Years, I think seeing Jude lash out after all this time was almost cathartic in a way? It makes sense for his character. But my gripe is with everyone around him and how they are portrayed. 
Especially Willem Andy and Harold, while they all have really great moments, also have reflections of hopelessness and a sort of twisted expectation for who Jude is that I think sends the wrong message. It’s like they expect him to be condemned to a life of suffering and to see him die young. I enjoy their perspectives, but they are almost uncharacteristically pessimistic at times at what I think is a detriment to the book as a whole. 
It is a comforting novel if I ignore the leeching of hopelessness that seeps from the people who are supposedly mentally healthy and un-traumatized, who are said time and time again that they love Jude. It is clear that they do, but they never expect Jude to get better. They seem almost afraid to hope for it. Even in those Happy Years, Willem speaks to having to accept Jude as he is. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with aspects of this, and I by no means think he should try to fix Jude himself, but the way it is written has an air of inevitability and hopelessness that I think negatively affects the story and its readers. 
I loved this book when it wrote out the often illogical thought processes that stem from trauma and mental illness, when it discussed coping and friendship and struggles. I think it could be a beautiful book for people who are suffering to feel seen, if only it didn’t discourage getting help and portray the people who are supposed to care despite everything as also believing that Jude’s suicide and suffering is inevitable. I think Jude being hopeless makes sense. I think everyone else’s retreat into inaction except in dire circumstances is cowardly and poorly thought out. Over and over they are said to care, said to love Jude and shown that they are smart, capable, reportedly empathetic and kind people. I don’t  think Jude dying by suicide is the issue. Sometimes that is how a life ends and it doesn’t matter how much love and support you have. And it can be hard to care for someone who so desperately wants to show you why you should do the opposite. But the way the people who love Jude are written as reflecting on who he is/was, how they don’t even hope that he will one day be better, not fixed but better, that I think is the books biggest issue. It changes it from being a comfort for the damned to being enabling and harmful to its readers.

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

this is the most fucked up book i’ve ever read but i  hung onto every word. i found myself rereading a page, three pages, ten pages, just going back, rereading it over again to make sure i absorbed all the information. let the shock hit me over and over again. it was so hard not to. i wanted to know everything that happened, make sure i didn’t miss anything. reading this made me feel like Willem and Andy and Harold; trying to get the information out of Jude, the stories of what happened in his past. i almost googled what happened mid book, that’s how on edge i was, but somehow i managed to resist. i’m not one for trigger warnings but this book needs like 40 different ones, about everything imaginable . if you are an empath this book is going to be so hard to read. it’s about abuse and hurting and SH and SA and domestic assault. everything that Jude has gone through is absolutely terrible. he can never catch a break. i cried so much reading this book. i would recommend it but seriously i dont even know if its worth putting yourself through the torture of reading this, it made me so depressed and emotional. i feel like I know these characters; that they’re my friends and im going through life with them and learning about everything that made them who they were. this book is also like 800+ pages but honestly im glad that it was so long and the author didnt skip out on telling us any information. he told us everything we needed to know, nothing was left out. the ending was so sad. i sobbed. the twist- that shocking, horrible twist- left me speechless. i wanted to hug each and every character and just hold them. 

im glad i bought this book and didnt read this from the library, because even though it’s so long i already know that im going to read it again and again throughout my life. this book feels like self mutilation and torture and as much as i cried and as much as it hurt me i loved it so so much. 


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

This is definitely the most depressing book I have ever read. It’s full of misery, depression, self-harm, substance abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, the list can go on and on. It basically has every trigger warning a book should have. And there’s rarely any uplifting glimpses in this entire 700 page novel. It’s very slowly placed yet still captivating in the prose although I do believe it got repetitive and probably 200 pages could’ve been removed without changing the overall impact the author was seeking (which is to depress you BTW). Brace yourself for misery if you plan to read this one, and I’d suggest pairing it with something upbeat to not get you in a slump. 

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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

Este libro me dejó sin habla. Incluso ahora aun después de haberlo terminado sigo sin poder encontrar las palabras para describir todo lo que me ha hecho sentir. Al principio pensaba que podría prever los acontecimientos pero fue llegar a poco más de la mitad y ahí fue cuando todo cayó de golpe. 

Los personajes sin duda son realistas, tienen sus fallos y carencias como cualquier persona real y te ves inmersa en sus vidas, en sus historias, en ocasiones enfadándote con ellos pero como última instancia deseando que les vaya bien. El cast principal (cuatro amigos de la universidad) es entrañable, enfocándose sobre todo en uno de ellos, que acaba siendo punto focal de todo.

En cuanto a la narrativa (sin entrar en muchos detalles) se cuenta cómo estos amigos superan dificultades varias (personales, laborales, académicas...) y poco a poco van encaminado sus propias vidas en un camino no siempre tan concreto.

He de destacar que no es una novela para espíritus frágiles; los temas que llega a abordar son serios, desagradables, hasta el punto de ser horrorizantes. Parte del porqué es un libro que es lento de leer es por las dificultades emocionales que puede llegar a despertar en el lector. Así que recomendaría leerla teniendo en cuenta todos los puntos mencionados anteriormente.

Para concluír la reseña, sólo puedo decir que es una historia que deja huella. Es compleja y su impacto en los lectores también es difícil de expresar. A pesar de que a grandes rasgos sea una novela con cierto sabor amargo creo que merece ser leída, ser contada, al menos ser recordada.

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Wish this book didn't make me wish for his death every minute of reading this.... This is not a compliment. This aspect of this book ruined it potential.

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