Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - A Little Life

I truly wanted to like this book, since it is so hyped and literally everyone is recommending it, but that is not the case. The biggest reason for this is that it feels unfinished, this is like the draft HY had on her laptop, with all her idea dumps and very few finished parts, just concepts to develop later, but it cannot stand on its own. .

The premise is that it follows the life of 4 friends (although it only focuses on 2) living in NY and how they struggle with their careers and tensions.

1. *Its is over 800 pages (I own the paperback edition) and so many of them were useless*. The first 120 pages were just useful for HY to construct her characters, but they provide nothing to the reader. It is just saying Willem studied acting bc of this, JB studied art bc of... Which is literally something that she keeps on explaining for the next 600 pages of the book.

2. *People say that this is about friendship...* HY keeps saying "they were friends" over and over, and you have to go w it bc they were roommates and they go to parties, but there is really not much bonding, except for maybe Willem and Jude.

3. *To refer to this as a queer novel, is irresponsible*. All gay male characters in this book were sadists and p3d0s. Consider this your trigger warning bc it is from the first to the last page of the book, and it goes deep into it. Except from JB, every gay character in the novel was abusive and violent, and it sells the idea that gay men are all p3d0s. While men are the largest demographic of the sex industry consumers, if you are making a novel about gay relationships it is weird that that's how you decide to frame it.

While two other male character had a relationship, both rejected the label gay, now I am totally for not labeling your sexuality -It's yours!- it denotated that one's sexuality is just the consequence of the abuse that they suffered, which is extremely damaging, and again, playing into harmful stereotypes.

At the same time, said character had STD's -unnamed- and yet there was no further address to them other than literally just mentioning them in one sentence (p.221), and then no info on how they had safe sex after that, which could actually be useful to folx out there!

Literally just took gay struggles down to the core of the stereotype and then absolutely no depth or room to grow. If you're taking from a community the least you have to do is give back.

4. *No depth where it mattered* So many pages were spent w details on NYC restaurants and buildings, couldn't care less. Except from the restaurant where Willem worked at, none of the others mattered. As soon as a major event happened, HY started describing a sushi restaurant. It felt like she ad this list of relevant events that were going to happen in the novel, and then he novel got published before she could write about them.

- p.686, character undergoes life threatening surgery, and in the same sentence we make a cut forward in time where you skip any relevant details on the recovery and reaction.

5. p. 693 "People always spoke of healing as if it were predictable and progressive, a decisive diagonal line" in an interview HY also mentioned that she changed form past to present tense bc that's how trauma affects the brain. The character also mentions that as much as they try, the memories keep coming back. So the entire novel feels like a loop, which as much as I understand the reasoning, it didn't keep it from being repetitive.

People can argue that the characters themselves were also tired and desperate of not being able to break the cycle, but honestly that's just an excuse. 800 pages and there's no progress, no dynamic, no nuance. Either make a change or cut it out.

It made me think a little of Bojack Horseman, who also had unresolved childhood trauma and during his adulthood he repeats cycles of abuse and hurts the people near him, and I cannot fucking believe that a show of a talking horse did a better job at it, than this novel.

(I do not want to compare abuse and trauma bc that is not the point and it isn't relevant, but I will say that the abuse Bojack suffered was never nearly as violent as what CharacterFromALL went through, so genuinely HY didn't have to take the literal most visceral, horrible, graphic, violent, cruelest things to give to a person, in order to speak about the subject. It was like she was insecure or unsure that a person could have trauma unless they went through that)

6. *Superficial characters* The characters were either all good or all bad, while they had interesting backgrounds, it was almost like HY was like "Harold was a nice man" and that's it, every interaction we had w him, he was described like that WE GET IT! Same w JB, he was always described as self centered and rude, then why were they friends? Best friends, childhood friends, lifelong friends, but they hated each other to the point of not talking. We were just told to believe that, and it just doesn't do it.

7. The most troubled character had to be EXCEPTIONAL at everything, at music, at their career, at their work, at their intellectual level, but from where? Other than their math passion, the other ones were kind of like... not based. And again we are jus told that, not shown.

An incredible ruthless lawyer... and yet no cases were mentioned??? I'm sorry but what, you're telling me that a workaholic never mentioned their cases, other than 'corporate litigation' no. no, that is just lazy.

They learned how to play piano and sing at 5yo, never practiced for a decade and then they were a prodigy still?

I understand that they are trying to overwork themselves in order to feel worthy to others -or that is my interpretation- but it also sends the message that one has to be good at everything in order to be valuable. Let's say they had fallen into addiction, not gone to college, not been a literal genius, would people still root for them? Would anyone help them?

8. *No background* Everyone became an overnight success at their careers and rich, please! In New Work! With no money background! (besides Malcolm). They start w/o being able to afford food, and then they own several apartments, trips to Asia, apartments in Europe, like what?

They use email and voice messages and phones, but there are no contemporary events? No market crash? 9/11? What about racial struggles? Only JB jokes abt it, but then nothing else.

Again, it feels lazy, unfinished, not well planned, unedited, how did this get published?

9. The entire novel is written in 3rd person and changes narrator, which I absolutely love! However, there were a couple chapters that were written in 1st person and addressed almost like letters to a character, which made no sense. WHAT WAS THE REASON? It feels again like a draft HY had, and then she just published it, how does it make sense? it makes no sense.

And here's the thing, Those chapters were narrated by one of my fav characters, so although I enjoyed his perspective, it makes no literary sense, its genuinely an accidental experiment, and again, feels lazy, unthought of, purposeless.

10. *How trauma is viewed* The main character has gone through truly horrible and unspeakable trauma, and I think that is why people 1. categorize this book as sad, 2. are afraid to criticize it, and 3. think it is groundbreaking.

Again, read the trigger warning bc this novel isn't light on them, and some people call it trauma dumping, and tbh that is not a good thing. People describing your work as a dump of something, speaks badly of it. Its saying that it isn't developed or worked on.

Sadly, what the character went through is not new, there are truly thousands of people irl LIVING IT. That's their reality, so this book made me angry, it made me feel more like there is no hope in humanity, I spent most of the time just furious that people like that exist, which that is a point to HY, she was calling out how they ruin the lives of so many people w their actions. But then again, se just lets cruelty go and there is nothing else to it.

And before you come w ur #hurtnocomfort bs, no that is not a good thing!

She's taking the trauma that so many people go through and then turning it into this quirky character trait, they have no personality, no room to grow, no development, nothing else to them.

At one point near the end, HY mentions that the main character donated to charities that helped exploited children. Literally just mentioned it. That was a huge opportunity to make the character reflect on themselves, and it got nothing more than a mention. No depth. How did the character get involved? Did they ever interact w the children? What did they feel from it? Ever encountered anyone who hurt them? no, none of that.

Which I also found odd, bc literally 100 pages before that, the character was extremely paranoid that someone who had abused them would find them, to the point of not wanting pics taken of them, news articles, or any public life, so tell me when they made the decision to get involved in the charities that deal directly with the people involved!!!

Again, lazy. when did this major change happened and why?

This isn't groundbreaking, it is just listing things that we -as a society- do not want to confront, so people blindly give it 5 stars, but think about if for a sec.

11. *Unnecesarily fatphobic* I just found it odd that the word "fat" was ALWAYS followed w disgusting, perverted, and gross. Again its a cheap literary resource to describe immoral characters, and it just feels lazy.

12. *Ableism* The main character is in chronic pain, and although the book did make me realize how much I should appreciate my body for what it is able to do for me, it genuinely made me reconsider this, I do think its weird how able bodied writers have one ending for disabled characters:

- d34th -

Do you realize the message that it sends?

And I am 100% pro assisted su1c1de, but it is a repeated thing that when a book deals w disabled characters, from an abled perspective, they kind of make you -as a reader- agree or justify the fact that said character viewed their life as worthless and so de4th is the best option. What does that say about disabled folx out there? what are you saying to them? are you writing a novel FOR them, or about how YOU view them?

And I understand that said character also dealed w depression, but then again, is that the message you want?

It did have some good things, HY had bits that were beautifully written, but again, if it could have been of that prose and less info dumping useless information, it would have been okay.

How could this be published?

Editorials are so... when it comes to publishing novels, so how come they took the risk to publish this 800+ thing w/o reviewing it first.

The novel doesn't feel finished, its like a bunch of drafts and it is missing major details, maybe if she took a year more to edit it, then it could have been a great novel.

I would never recommend this book, but I am curios to read other novels she makes.

Content Warnings

miaaa_lenaaa's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

<<<SPOILERS>>>
first off totally 100% respect anyone who hated this
i feel like i would have if i hadnt skim read a lot of the bits of jude hating himself
A lot of the time it seemed like Yanagihara had found cool metaphors for jude hating himself and was just excited to use them
but there was also some relatable stuff (right??? other people thought that too right???) like 'He had never done it before and so he didnt know how sad and slow and difficult it was to end a friendship' OOF that was the bit that made me cry the most, as well of some other bits about like friendships and stuff and wanting to help someone/talk to them about something but not and being stressed to cause you love them and want to keep them safe but you dont want to cross their barriers :'(
I didnt really sob? like i knew jude was gonna die before i even met him and suspect willem for about 150 pgs before
did shed a couple tears at harold and julia listening to judes cd and harold talking to the painting of Willem

Content Warnings

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