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A review by audlittlebookshelf
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Did not finish book. Stopped at 51%.
TL;DR: This is trauma porn meant to highlight some questionable beliefs held by the author. Don’t believe me? Read her interviews.
I am begging you to read the author’s interview with Electric Lit before starting this book! Here are a few highlights: She compares therapy to religion and states that she does not believe in it. She also believes that some people cannot be helped or move past the point where they can be helped and would be better off committing suicide. Lastly, she openly states that she did not do any research before creating the main character who suffers years and years of abuse. Knowing these things, this book feels like an attempt to showcase and justify those beliefs.
It seems like a lot of the praise for this book is shock value combined with Yanagihara’s genuine talent for detailed and descriptive writing. Thankfully there are a lot of 1 and 2 star reviews for this book that do a great job of articulating its problems. I would recommend reading some before diving into this book, especially if you feel like you have only seen positive reviews.
I will also say that I read detailed summaries of the last half of the book because I wanted to know how it ended and if my instincts were correct. All I will say is that I am immensely relieved that I decided not to endure another 400 pages of this.
Lastly, I will leave you with this quote from the London Review of Books:
I am begging you to read the author’s interview with Electric Lit before starting this book! Here are a few highlights: She compares therapy to religion and states that she does not believe in it. She also believes that some people cannot be helped or move past the point where they can be helped and would be better off committing suicide. Lastly, she openly states that she did not do any research before creating the main character who suffers years and years of abuse. Knowing these things, this book feels like an attempt to showcase and justify those beliefs.
It seems like a lot of the praise for this book is shock value combined with Yanagihara’s genuine talent for detailed and descriptive writing. Thankfully there are a lot of 1 and 2 star reviews for this book that do a great job of articulating its problems. I would recommend reading some before diving into this book, especially if you feel like you have only seen positive reviews.
I will also say that I read detailed summaries of the last half of the book because I wanted to know how it ended and if my instincts were correct. All I will say is that I am immensely relieved that I decided not to endure another 400 pages of this.
Lastly, I will leave you with this quote from the London Review of Books:
He wishes he too could forget, that he too could choose never to consider Caleb again. Always, he wonders why and how he has let four months – four months increasingly distant from him – so affect him, so alter his life. But then, he might as well ask – as he often does – why he has let the first 15 years of his life so dictate the past 28.
The answer, of course, is that it’s Yanagihara’s design. That’s why it’s good to know that Jude is entirely her concoction, not a figure based on testimony by survivors of child rape, clinical case studies or anything empirical. I found Jude an infuriating object of attention, but resisted blaming the victim. I blame the author.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Mental illness, Ableism, Addiction, Body horror, Car accident, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Violence, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Pedophilia, Rape, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Suicide, and Trafficking
Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Addiction, and Alcohol