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A review by sebby_reads
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
5.0
I have never cried so much in my life while reading a novel. This must be the kind of book Franz Kafka once said, “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? (...) A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
Despite being a total page turner, #ALittleLife is one harrowing book that I had to take small breaks after some pages. Relentless suffering from the beginning to the end, these 810 pages were an exhausting read, yet I immensely enjoyed it in last 6 days.
It casually started with a group of friends in New York—JB, Jude, Malcom, and Willem—trying to be successful in their own field after the college. Then slowly and cruelly learnt about the past of the broken protagonist, Jude. His inexplicability about his dark past was, at first, seemed like a mystery but, my, I was gasping for air when it was unfolded. His abusive and traumatic childhood was something always troubling him. His 4 dear friends and other loving friends tried to help him escape the hyenas of his own savannah.
I like how Hanya Yanagihara wrote this book. No specific and famous person or movie or songs were featured so it becomes eternal present day. Everyone from different decades can relate to it. I know the book is not perfect or the best in literature sense or whatever ruler you use to measure it. But I just love, love, love her storytelling. The writing is too graphic and some chapters are like pushing a knife into an open wound and twisting it again.
*SPOILER*
Some people never escape from their dark past no matter how hard they fight. And despite the unconditional love and support form the loved ones around him, somehow he can’t be saved. Near the end of the book, I wasn’t just crying, I was bawling. The last chapter broke me like Kafka had said.
Jude, Willem, JB & Malcom forever. As well as Harold, Julie, Andy, Richard, and everyone surrounded these beautiful-soul people with such loving and care and kindness. I still can’t get over it yet. I might regretfully pick it up again in a couple of years.
Despite being a total page turner, #ALittleLife is one harrowing book that I had to take small breaks after some pages. Relentless suffering from the beginning to the end, these 810 pages were an exhausting read, yet I immensely enjoyed it in last 6 days.
It casually started with a group of friends in New York—JB, Jude, Malcom, and Willem—trying to be successful in their own field after the college. Then slowly and cruelly learnt about the past of the broken protagonist, Jude. His inexplicability about his dark past was, at first, seemed like a mystery but, my, I was gasping for air when it was unfolded. His abusive and traumatic childhood was something always troubling him. His 4 dear friends and other loving friends tried to help him escape the hyenas of his own savannah.
I like how Hanya Yanagihara wrote this book. No specific and famous person or movie or songs were featured so it becomes eternal present day. Everyone from different decades can relate to it. I know the book is not perfect or the best in literature sense or whatever ruler you use to measure it. But I just love, love, love her storytelling. The writing is too graphic and some chapters are like pushing a knife into an open wound and twisting it again.
*SPOILER*
Some people never escape from their dark past no matter how hard they fight. And despite the unconditional love and support form the loved ones around him, somehow he can’t be saved. Near the end of the book, I wasn’t just crying, I was bawling. The last chapter broke me like Kafka had said.
Jude, Willem, JB & Malcom forever. As well as Harold, Julie, Andy, Richard, and everyone surrounded these beautiful-soul people with such loving and care and kindness. I still can’t get over it yet. I might regretfully pick it up again in a couple of years.