A review by alvin_lai
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

dark emotional reflective sad tense 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

2.5

*SPOILERS* A Little Life is a heavy, and poetically written novel that features themes of trauma, despair and disability
that ends in a predictable tragedy
. The novel feels like Yanagihara’s attempt in creating a visceral, depressing experience for the reader, and perhaps a catharsis that comes with newfound gratitude. However, this catharsis comes from an appreciation for life after witnessing the protagonist’s devastating character development, which, in my opinion, was poorly designed. As the novel progresses, Jude’s traumatic past is uncovered in tandem with present abuse and self-harm. His plot line, as a result, becomes a bombardment of tragedies and a robbery of even the smallest glimmer of hope that appears in his life. As such, Jude’s character becomes increasingly one-dimensional - a traumatised victim who refuses hope from a lack of belief in humanity. He hence becomes hard to relate to and is an unsuccessful vessel in delivering heavy emotional impact on the reader. From another perspective, Yanagihara’s choice to concentrate all types of abuse and traumatic events onto a single character throughout the entire novel could be seen as an over-the-top attempt to justify Jude as a character that is deserving of empathy, painting an unrealistic standard of suffering that is not only hard to relate to, but undermines emotional turmoil that is not backed, or justified, with excessive occurrences of painstaking events. 
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