A review by nabaraditi
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

 Why I may recommend this book? (and i'm saying this being a lawyer, a teacher and a psychology student) 
1. Toxic masculinity, that its easier for a woman to ask for help but not a man and hence most of the men never get help 
2. What happens to us as children, we carry that baggage in our adulthood as well. It influences how we behave, how we think, how we talk to ourselves. 
3. Helps understand why people self-inflict harm or wish to die by suicide 
4. How difficult and helpless the person feels around people dealing with trauma (and even grief) 
5. Therapy is a two way street. You cannot be helped if you don’t want to be helped. 
6. People don’t always get “cured” from their childhood trauma (it depends on the individual, it depends on the trauma, how it deeply it has affected them how it’s perceived by them, etc). Like cancer can come back, so can old habits in people who have eating disorder or substance abuse and the same applies to people who were sexually and physically abused as a child. 

 One of the reasons why I loved this book is that it makes us feel part of these characters like you’re another friend to them or you’re a fly on the wall observing everything. 

Another thing I’d like to add is that if we talk about explicit writing
then yes the author did elaborate on suicide attempt(s) and self-harm. But the what Jude went through as a child and teenagar, the sexual assault/rape/prostitution (which would also be rape as he wasn’t an adult) is not elaborated but understood what kind of people were a party to those acts like calling them clients, groups, men, etc.
 
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