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tabklein 's review for:
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
so. this book. i heard of it from a new york times article because i was looking for new books to read and it was listed as one of six "long, absorbing books to get you through vacation". vacation, quarantine, same thing. so i bought it, and read it, and now here i am, staring at my ceiling wishing i was asleep so i didn't have to be conscious of the fact that i'm alive!
actually, i cried so hard particularly during the last two sections of this book (dear comrade and lispenard street) that it took me three tries to read the last page. i then went to the bathroom and stuck my hands under cold running water for 5 minutes for absolutely no reason, i took twice as much sleep medicine as i'm supposed to (they're just gummy vitamins from target, don't worry), and then i hyperventilated myself to sleep.
anyway.
aside from how heartbreaking this book was, if i try and think past that, it really is amazing. the writing was good enough to keep me reading all 700something pages (even though i had to put it down multiple times just because of content). i love stories about friendship and found families, and the characters were something else. i don't think i have words to describe how much i love jude, and willem, and harold; andy, and richard, and malcolm. JB is a different story. but this book really was a little life, and when i finished it, i felt like i had lived it. if i think too hard about it i'll also have to confront my own mortality so we'll stop there.
all in all, i finished this book yesterday and have already spent the past 24 hours in a daze. a little life was captivating and devastating, and while i appreciate that it exists and was something i got to read, a part of me wishes i could go back to that right-before moment, where it sat on my bookshelf unopened, and it was full of possibility but i didn't feel like dissolving into space.
actually, i cried so hard particularly during the last two sections of this book (dear comrade and lispenard street) that it took me three tries to read the last page. i then went to the bathroom and stuck my hands under cold running water for 5 minutes for absolutely no reason, i took twice as much sleep medicine as i'm supposed to (they're just gummy vitamins from target, don't worry), and then i hyperventilated myself to sleep.
anyway.
aside from how heartbreaking this book was, if i try and think past that, it really is amazing. the writing was good enough to keep me reading all 700something pages (even though i had to put it down multiple times just because of content). i love stories about friendship and found families, and the characters were something else. i don't think i have words to describe how much i love jude, and willem, and harold; andy, and richard, and malcolm. JB is a different story. but this book really was a little life, and when i finished it, i felt like i had lived it. if i think too hard about it i'll also have to confront my own mortality so we'll stop there.
all in all, i finished this book yesterday and have already spent the past 24 hours in a daze. a little life was captivating and devastating, and while i appreciate that it exists and was something i got to read, a part of me wishes i could go back to that right-before moment, where it sat on my bookshelf unopened, and it was full of possibility but i didn't feel like dissolving into space.