A review by irishrose7777
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

dark sad 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

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: Body shaming, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Bullying, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Sexual harassment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Rape, Self harm, Ableism, Addiction, Drug use, Eating disorder, Injury/Injury detail, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Vomit, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Gore, Death, Kidnapping, and Medical content