A review by ramennoodsnoods
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

challenging dark emotional reflective 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 book will stick with me for a long time. I enjoyed the ‘stream of consciousness’ type of writing style and the changes in perspective. Definitely heavy topics but I really do think that they were purposeful for depicting character development. Would only recommend to those comfortable hearing about the experience of living with trauma and depictions of it. While heavy in traumatic topics, i didn’t think that these depictions were unnecessary graphic, while still being explicit. Some may disagree with this but I think that there is a lot of subtext to these instances which are necessary for character development. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Child death, Emotional abuse, Ableism, Body shaming, Addiction, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Torture, Terminal illness, Suicide attempt, Sexual harassment, Forced institutionalization, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Rape, Sexual violence, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Gore, Gaslighting, Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Car accident, Drug use, Death, Chronic illness, Blood, and Adult/minor relationship