Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

424 reviews

horrorfan37's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

kiwiifizz's review against another edition

I'm sorry I know I'm of an unpopular opinion but yes the writing is well detailed but this is genuinely one of the most darkest books I have ever read and I do enjoy tragic stories and have read several over the years but there comes a point that it's graphic and dark just to check the list I highlighted and bookmarked every dark and good thing that happened and 80% was every bad thing you can think of pretty much.

To enjoy this book is to think like JB to be untraumazied is to be boring and oh how he envied Jude on his trauma.

As a person with childhood trauma I will leave this book at 50% done and will go touch grass.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

samanthaleereads's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Car accident, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Outing

lucyjkimee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny 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

A little life was unnecessarily, ruthlessly cruel. I hate this book for existing. For making me feel so helpless and disgusting, but I love it because no other book in this entire world could have made me feel the same sense of wonder and insignificance. No other book could have set such a clear vision of perspective in front of me. I haven't enough decision-making skills to coherently understand how exactly I feel about a little life yet. Maybe I will one day, but till then, I don't want to talk about it; I don't want to think about it.

This was my review of A Little Life when I read it for the first time a little over two years ago. Now I have a more coherent grasp of what exactly I feel about this book.

A Little Life starts off beautifully. It does a wonderful job of introducing the main characters to us in a natural yet informative way. We aren't overwhelmed with information all at once, and the author creates a deep sort of intimacy between the characters and the readers. But then, as we go more and more into the story, as we move on from JB's POV, Willem's POV, and Malcolm's POV, and enter Jude's POV, there begins the problem. The sheer amount of visceral abuse and torture that is in this book, and the graphic and unforgiving way it is broached, is absolutely ridiculous. It gets to the point where you start wondering what the point is. What was the point of writing about such disgusting and horrifying realities? What was the reason one specific character was subjected to that type of cruelty and so unrelentingly? Is it the romanticization of abuse? Is it the insensitive sense of entitlement authors often tend to have?

The more you read this book, the more you want to put it down, the more you dread having to pick it up again. It took me about six months to finish this book, and not because I forgot about it. On the contrary, I thought about A Little Life obsessively. It took me six months because of how much I didn’t want to see what happened next. You think it's over; you think, “No way it could get worse than this,” but then it does, and then your resolve crumbles.

After I finished this book, I took it upon myself to find out everything I could about it. I watched interview after interview of Hanya Yanigihara during promotions; I read every review and article I could find, all the ones that mattered; I delved deep into this story that was created until I figured out the central truth of it. And that is this. More than anything else, A Little Life is a fantasy book. It's fantastical and ludicrous, and not realistic whatsoever. It was written to be a hyperbole, an overstretch of all of life's truths. And once I realized this and accepted it, I found it possible to love A Little Life again.

So, would I recommend reading this book? Yes and no. It changed my life, and to this day, I haven't read anything to match it. But also, every single complaint and one-star review of this book has its merits. Take the time to look up the trigger warnings; don't worry, it doesn't make you a snowflake. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

briana513's review against another edition

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Racism, Rape, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

Minor: Ableism

matthew_nt's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

ellekedesmit's review against another edition

I actually quite liked the start of the book, It was interesting and intriguing. i liked how the four friends were described equally and how different perspectives were given without the scenes feeling repetitive. However after this it started going down hill for me and i found the story mainly frustrating, rather than sad.

The main focus is put on judy, and by the middle of the book he becomes almost the sole focus, which i found disappointing. 

My main struggles were with Judy's friends, mainly willem and his “therapist” Andy. 
As someone who has struggled with self harm, the repetitive and overly detailed descriptions of Judy's cutting, were quite triggering for me and felt unnecessary. 
In the middle of the book Judy is around 30 and he cuts himself almost every night after, basically every minor inconvenience. And andy is aware of this, because he counts the cuts (which seemed a bit odd to me too), but he does not intervene once! And his reasoning being because judy is “high functioning” and that because he’s consistent in his cutting, the likely hood of him attempting suicide is lower. Personally i find that severely unprofessional to hear from someone that is supposedly a professional. How can you let someone do that to themselves and justify it by how well they are “pretending to be normal” and by fucking statistics.

Besides that, I find it highly unlikely that Judy's only coping mechanism is cutting (until after the suïcide, which was insanely predictable), that he feels no guilt about it, and that he makes no attempt to find help and find a way to cut less in 40 years! 

How everyone was so surprised by the suicide and the way that the people around Judy reacted to the suicide boggled me. Judy refuses to talk to a therapist, and the people around him just give in to this. When judy starts confiding in willem, im glad he finally says something, but i think willem needs therapy to process all that trauma. 

I found the relationship between willem and judy both interesting and horrible. I enjoyed seeing how judy found new more healthier ways to cope and was generally trying to get better. But he needed help with that from a professional. The sex parts infuriated me, because it was so clear that judy did not want it and there were so many signs, all willem did was tell judy to stop cutting. What was that going to do? 

The way judy talks about his body, his disabilities and how he feels about himself, i found convincing and understanding at the start. But after over 20 years had passed and he still thought the exact same, it started getting on my nerve a bit. I know everyone has bad days, but it is harmful to the disabled community to portray a disabled character this way. The repetitiveness of the mentioning of how disgusting he is because he is in a wheelchair, was so uncomfortable to read. 

Dont even let me go into the casual opinion dumping of autistic induviduals, that was so out of place and unnecassery. 

The monastery story seemed quite realistic and already horrible and severely traumatizing to me, but the writer had to add more, with the prostituting. And if u thought it ended there, you are very wrong. Because there just keeps coming more horribleness. It started feeling like some gross fantasy of the author, higly unrealistic and very unnecessary. 

After my intense frustration with this book i looked up some reviews to see if others felt a similar way, and i found that even more trauma stories are added, and just traumatic experience follows traumatic experience.

I read somewhere that the goal of the story was to show that some people are just untreatable, and un-“fixable”. Which i disagree with, and i think that a lot that happened in the book could have easily been prevented if judy received the proper help. And personally i think there are enough people in this story that should have stepped up and done something. To get him admitted and gat him to talk to someone professional. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

carrierolling's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

4.0

This is one of those books that when I finished, I was glad to have read it; but the reading experience was difficult because of the subject matter as well as the editing, or lack there of. The unedited quality, I think, is intentional, as a life lived and it’s inner workings, especially for someone with CPTSD, is detail ridden, slow, hard to get through at times. I hear the criticisms of this book as trauma porn and respect them, but I would t go that far. I would say, rather, that the story is trauma ridden and that it’s intentionally asking us to stare into the face of it. It just doesn’t make for a great reading experience at times. It begs the question: is the author’s goal to create the art that asks us to face hardship in an immersive way a valuable one? If so, is it worth the loss of a more comfortable reading experience? As many readers would likely abandon such a work? Do we reach more readers if we make the art more palatable? Can the point still come across then?

The book has a lot of buzz, though, so perhaps it’s working.

The criticism that the diverse characters are more secondary and don’t have their own fleshed out arcs is valid. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

frankiecello's review against another edition

made me too sad

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

teashopgirl08's review against another edition

challenging 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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail