Reviews with content warning for Gore - A Little Life: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015

This book navigates adult friendships, aging, career paths, addiction, romantic relationships, and family is the most insightful and beautiful way I have ever read. Unfortunately, this all ends around a third of the way in, when the book focuses on one character’s extremely traumatic life. <spoilers> The graphic and excessive descriptions of child rape, self harm and domestic abuse left me desensitised, an effect that I think is harmful to the reader and one that I hope the author did not intend. I understand that Jude’s suffering is the foundation of his character, but Yanagihara’s rendering of his abuse feels sensationalist and in my opinion trauma porn. Whilst a full recovery and happy ending for Jude would have been unrealistic, the sheer volume of physical, psychological, sexual abuse he experiences is so extreme that it feels pointless. Yes, everything that happens to Jude happens to real people, but does it all ever happen to one singular person? Jude is abandoned in an alley as a baby, a child prostitute raped almost daily, a double amputee, has an eating disorder, performs serious self harm almost daily, and loses the love of his life in a car accident. But also, he’s a vastly wealthy and successful lawyer, an exquisite singer of Schubert’s lieder, a professional-grade baker, incredibly good-looking, is adopted as an adult by his ex professor and falls in love with his best friend of 30 years. <spoilers> The result is that the book feels preachy without actually being clear as to what it is preaching; are we to feel guilty that such horrors occur in the world? Empathy for this fictitious anomaly of a person who experiences it all? Grateful for our own normal struggles in life? I’m not sure, but this book was painful to read and without many benefits for me.

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kait51db's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

i actually hate this book. it's well written (not for everyone, but the writing style is perfect for me), i adore the characters, yet it is torture porn i will not recommend to anyone without stacks and stacks of warnings. i do not believe it is a pain worth experiencing because you have to experience this story. that being said—it is an experience. the reason it is not five stars is because there are many scenes that simply did not need to exist in the detail they existed in to tell the story, and i believe they are they for shock value. it was unnecessary. the author is clearly capable of creating a fleshed out, beautiful world with characters you will love and tell a story that can mean so much to so many, and the reliance on the details of traumatic, horrible events is so irrelevant. it is the book's singular flaw.

believe it or not, i have compliments! like i said, the writing style is my personal favorite—a little tedious, a little pretentious, but so stream-of-thought and beautiful that it's worth sitting with the long sentences and paragraphs. i loved the characters dearly. the heart-wrenching experience of the day-to-day struggle of managing mental illness and trauma that can never truly be healed was depicted brutally but honestly. it is not something i regret reading, or something i will say no one should read, but it is something worth ruminating on if reading it is worth it. talk to people who have read it, find the warnings (and not just a "trigger warning for everything" because that is useless and the specifics matter!), and really assess if the emotional destress if something you can manage for the benefit of loving a book. this is a book i learned from, but not a book required to learn.

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impossibleprobable's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

4.75

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emily50a's review against another edition

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It’s poorly written. Reads like poorly edited fanfic at parts and is extremely self indulgent. The book is designed to make the readers soul turn black and strained. The events that happen in the book are extremely traumatic so yeah. It WILL get you down but in a very clumsy way (This book could have used a better edit, and some tough love maybe it would have been alright). Darkness is a part of life. This book feels like a slap in the face to survivors. If you want to read good works of art that break your heart try Kim Thúy instead.

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ceetea's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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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k_coston's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense 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

0.25

I need the author in jail
I go into recommendations blind and all I heard was this made people on tiktok cry, so here is my review after listening to the audiobook for 3 months spoilers are present

1. there's a problem with how there was no care provided to Jude after he got outta his situation like Anya ow whatever her name was didn't set up any counseling after what he went and survived through???? OK, it seems fake, but ok

2. he's such a victim, like it's hard for me to feel sympathy when they unravel his story intermittently throughout the book . It explains why he's like that but it's just a me thing that I didn't like how the book was set up I almost would've wanted them to wait until the end to reveal what happened to him

3. I feel like the author was deriving pleasure how much she was dumping on Jude, like it was extremely hard to continue at times, and I would've dnfed if I was reading the actual book. I feel like that experience with Dr trailer was completely unnecessary to the story like it was just like "again really we already did this with brother luke" while listening to it also the story of how the Dr got Jude needed to be explained more throughly

4. willem and Jude had respect for each other but not love like willem took advantage of Jude and that really disgusted me when we found out he suspected Jude didn't like having sex with him and he still subjected him to it? after already guessing he had sexual trauma, you did that to the person you supposedly loved most? actually, he didn't even respect him. You don't do that to people you love.

5. how does Jude have a backbone in only 1 area of his life? only work. on top of not having a backbone, he doesn't have a personality! he doesnt share anything about himself it seems like he's being pitied by everyone around him all the time, like he does not develop whatsoever from page one and I feel like I myself don't know anything about Jude other than he doesn't like himself but even after a while a victim has to take a stand for themselves and we're rooting for him to get some self esteem and it just never develops. if you don't have a backbone for yourself and for no one else, how are you supposed to stand the test of time? how are you supposed to take the rocks that life throw at you??? that's exactly why Caleb was allowed to do what he did to Jude and why Jude was always bound to kill himself in the end.

6. this is a book that doesn't have any character development in the slightest and I was holding out until the last moment that the author would do the humane thing and give Jude a happy ending but no. it was a vile book of trauma porn with no resolution so you spend the entire book reading about unthinkable pain and suffering so much so that you start wanting him to die to put him out of his misery.

very cruel Hanya.

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jojomaur's review against another edition

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challenging dark 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

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