irishrose7777 's review for:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

2.5

dark sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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The description of the book is totally misleading. I expected a raw (and probably sad) story of friendships through the decades. Instead it’s like 90 pages of establishing friendships (I think Malcom literally got one chapter) and then 800 pages of trying to see how much unrealistic trauma the author could stuff into one character. It honestly got almost humorous with how many bad breaks one character could have in their life. I understand that the author was trying to create a really “tortured soul” type character but honestly it seems like she was just writing for shock value without actually moving the story forward. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, 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, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail