A review by theguildwriter
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Did not finish book. Stopped at 53%.

A Little Life: The Fetishization of Trauma

I have read plenty of other books with difficult, graphic content, and in all of my other experiences, this graphic content proved necessary for the plot and was justified by the conclusion of the book. None of it felt fetishized. A Little Life is different. The words "trauma porn" come to mind. The prose of this book was good, the characters felt real, and there were many scenes I thought were well done. However, it became clear -- once I had taken a step back and began to look at the events of the book in bullet points -- that the writer was not interested in telling a story of journey, identity, and healing, as I had previously assumed. While there are small victories here and there throughout the characters' personal journeys, they are not victories that make a definitive difference in the characters' lives. The book reads as an author obsessed with torturing her characters, particularly the main character, Jude, and writes the journeys of people who belong to communities that she does not belong to nor has done research on. The fixation on the LGBTQ+ community (the main population of her book) and on torturing them through sexual abuse, drug abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, rape, suicidal ideations, and suicide attempts reflects, in my opinion, a disturbed mind and a fetishization of this suffering.

I call it fixation because of the detail and time given to the scenes describing trauma compared to other scenes. After part one, more time is given to describing, again and again, scenes of self-harm, mental breakdowns, sexual assault, and abuse than is given to other scenes in the book that establish character relationships, plot development (outside of traumatic incidents), and character development. There is more attention and emphasis on these incidents than there is the rest of the book. I came up for air from the depths of the pages, took a step back, and really thought about all that had happened and how it happened, and I realized that (with the exception of part one, which I really loved) there was little else to the book besides the fetishization of trauma. 


While I went into this book with high hopes and a good opinion of the author's technical skill in terms of prose, I am leaving it now with a strong recommendation *against* reading this work. I rarely DNF a book, and, even if I don't enjoy a book, I almost never truly recommend against a book, but I am doing both now with A Little Life.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Injury/Injury detail

Yes, I did read the summary of the rest of the events of the book after DNFing, and it further validated my decision to do so. Reading the summary of events listed out like that makes it clear how ludicrous they are, how unreasonable and excessive these traumatic events and abuses are. I read the summary aloud to my friends who just stared in shock and said, "This sounds like f*cked up fanfiction." And then Jude takes his life at the end, anyway.