Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

1222 reviews

iveyrenee's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

4.0

I lost track of how many times I cried reading this book so many emotions so sad so frustrated just so much only not 5 starts because I have to reread multiple parts because the random pov shifts caught me off guard sometimes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

emmabellex's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Car accident, and Suicide attempt

alleywolf's review against another edition

dark emotional 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? Yes

5.0

The story of Jude and his friends tore me to shreds. It was beautiful and tragic. But the love from your chosen family is what saves us and I believe Yanagihara captured that perfectly in this story. I think about it on a daily basis, not kidding.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

silly_dragon's review against another edition

3.0

This is difficult to rate. When I was reading it, aspects of the mc's internal narrative were so incredibly meaningful to me for how it articulated living your adult life with deep childhood trauma that is just a core part of you and will never not be. With more distance from the text, I kinda hate it. Most of the characters in this book exist to live, but the disabled poc trauma survivor mc exists to die. That's baked into the plot in a way that reads as a bit eugenecist in how it values different lives. Also, there's a whole thing that is presented as past trauma being part of a present relationship but is actually just sexual assault (and kinda acephobic) between two characters that we're supposed to love and root for. The parts of the book relating to physical disability very much appear to be written by an able bodied person. Also, I don't want to police the way a woman of color writes about race but it is weird for an Asian American woman to write so much about what it means to be a black man in america.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Medical content, Kidnapping, and Acephobia/Arophobia

re acephobia and partner assault: in the relationship between two main characters, one character is unable to enjoy sex but does it anyway because they sort of think they have to, while the other knows the first person doesn’t want to have sex but pretends not to know out of a sense that not having sex in their relationship wouls be something horrible. The text does not challenge this beliefe. Re eugenics vibes: the main character, a queer poc disabled trauma survivor, dealing with chronic pain and ptsd, who is sexually assaulted many times in this book, exists to die. This death is in service of the story that goes on to center this character's (white, non disabled) fiance. It's not a good look

natalialg236's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

hart1217d's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, and Medical content

libraryoflolabelle's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, and Dysphoria

astha_shah's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Written beautifully. Hard to get through, but worth it. Laughed and gasped out loud. Felt so deeply for all of those characters. You see things coming, and they still break your heart.

Read the trigger warnings for this book before you decide to pick it up. Only you know what you've been through and if it's something you can handle. Don't take it lightly.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide and Injury/Injury detail

srkennedy1218's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

toriyaki's review against another edition

The depth of the characters was lost in the author’s want to make it a “deep” exploration of trauma. It lacks the necessary understanding of human experience and is truly “fiction”. Not a deep emotional tale or another subplot or narrative. Just plan cartoonish nonsense that disguises itself as a trauma novel. Would be better written if it was a scientific thesis on trauma instead of a failed attempt to be deep. Author uses “telling” instead of “showing” brings this disconnect and basically the author telling the reader to “feel” what’s being told. But it doesn’t work like that- emotional pull isn’t there since there is no character development in the abusers besides the author telling us that they are abusers. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, and Car accident