shannahsmith 's review for:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

4.5

dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I don’t know if I’ll be able to appropriately describe how I feel about this book. As much as my heart hurts, I truly cannot help but LOVE these characters and the writing style. This book is the epitome of a SLOW [and gruesome] burn and makes you question the value of life, but it also made me feel emotions and anger I didn’t know I had. There were moments while reading that I felt “I wish she would hurry up and get some closure” but in the end the amount of detail and the time you spend getting to know the details of these guys’ lives make you all the more invested in their story so if Yanagihara had cut things short and left out half of the details, I probably wouldn’t have sobbed so hard. I think that’s the ultimate sign of a good read - strong emotional connection with the characters. Finally, as a math nerd I FULLY appreciated the mathy discussions about axioms and the beauty of logic and proofs! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt

Moderate: Death, Drug abuse, Kidnapping