autumnnook 's review for:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

5.0

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

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A little life is a beautiful yet harrowing exploration of traumas effects on a person and what it means to love and trust, to hold and alllow yourself to be held. It asks what we owe to our friends and loved ones and what they owe to us. I adore that this book doesn’t feel the need to give Jude a “happy ending” that is pleasing for the audience and those around him but instead let’s him be as he is. I don’t feel that this book glamorised trauma and mental illness at all, it was well said in the book that it was no good thing, instead, it let mental illness be ugly, not everyone’s story is one that ends in happiness and healing and I believe their story deserves to be told too. 

“There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt