Reviews tagging 'Rape'

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

3316 reviews

mvegag's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Without spoilers I do have to say this was a complete journey on friendship and human relationships, everything that is said about the book is true, it has amazing writing, complex characters and it is very sad but I still think not sadness as conveyed just being sad and towards the end just a feeling of this is how life is.
All this to say, highly important to read trigger warnings this book is not for everyone and although I would love to recommend it to everyone I know as an amazing study on relationships in life, complex emotions, communication, love and affection, this is a very tough book that will have you feeling sad, hopeless, in despair, angry and touches basically all potentially triggering topics in detail. Reading it in the incorrect mindset I’m sure could lead to DNF’ing it and just having a bad experience and spiraling even further into whatever you might be going through.
If you feel like you need to be hit by life, to have your truths be told and feel exposed, guilty, sad and angry whilst following some extreme situations then by all means go for it and I’m sure you will “enjoy” it.
5 stars for the amazing journey it was, how complex relationships and emotions are handled and how it doesn’t care for any kind of expectations you might have, this is raw life, no sugar coating.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

_paigejennings_'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? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Abandonment

annaavaa's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

hullabalyew's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-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

4.75

This book was so well written. Yanagihara evokes so many emotions from guilt, shame, and fear to joy, pride and love. “A Little Life” encapsulates the complexities of existing, of living. While many will never suffer even a fraction of what Jude has, we can still relate to the insecurities that we’re not good enough for our friends or our job or our family. This book was so powerful, and in many ways, I think the twists and turns and painful and sad bits are what makes it so good. For some, life is full of loss, but they still chug along and keep living. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Car accident, and Gaslighting

panger97's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

Read this through as a book club book with friends! It honestly took me a bit to get going with this book. The prose is beautiful, but the book does use a somewhat unconventional story telling style, as it mixes flashbacks, a bit of POV shifts and more.

The story begins with 4 boys, Jude, Malcolm, JB and Willem, just fresh out of college and trying to make it in NY. 
Malcom is an architect, Jude is a lawyer, Willem is an actor and JB is an artist. The book starts off a bit slow, but that’s because it does spend some time developing their backgrounds. However, and not really a spoiler, Jude is the most mysterious of them.

I overall enjoyed it, but I did find some parts of it to be quite unrealistic or over the top. I also found that what were main characters kind of took a backseat roll later. Not a critique per se as life happens like that, but I do wish they were developed more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Medical trauma, and Car accident

alastair_james'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

5.0

Wow. Yeah so it ended the way I thought it would. Still frickin sad, though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

neen_bean's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

yeldah_reedz'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

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

gretchen_chloe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

LOOK UP TRAUMA WARNINGS before reading this book!

I gave this book a high star rating because it is a deeply moving and well written book about friendship, life and love- focusing on one character in particular who’s horrifying past slowly unfolds. 
I read someone else’s review saying they wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book and I feel similarly in that it deals with incredibly difficult subject matter. 
This book was heart wrenchingly sad, disturbing, and at times beautiful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

statfan21's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring 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

5.0

This is the greatest book I have ever read. I’ve never felt so connected to characters before. While reading I find myself telling stories from this book as if they’re stories of a friend of mine. I’ll mention “my friend JB…” and then remember that they’re just book characters. I’ve never felt more seen in my life by anything ever. Of course there’s many, many differences between my life and Jude’s, but the way he thinks and acts, I didn’t think anyone else thought or acted like this. It took until I was 21 years old to realize that maybe there is someone out there who actually does understand me. Which makes this both heartbreaking but also healing. I’ve never been this affected by a piece of media before. I will never forget this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt