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A review by pagesofnectar
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
4.0
Ok, hear me out here, I know you want to read this book SO bad. You've been hearing about it everywhere and everyone's been telling you it's hard to read and shouldn't been taken light-heartedly. And, of course, when you get told you probably shouldn't do something you'd have no interest in doing, was it encouraged and not discouraged, you suddenly want to do it so much, like humans tend to do their whole existence! However, I cannot possibly point out enough how you really shouldn't read this! And I don't mean that in the "it's a bad book, don't read it" way. I mean it in the "chances are that if you fit the simple criteria of being human you are NOT mentally well enough to read this without getting drowned in a pool of misery and feelings of emptiness". This is raw and hard as heck and I beg you to check out detailed trigger warnings for this book, with the ones I find prominent being
After getting that out of the way, this is an absolutely heartbreaking story of people hurting people either willingly or due to ignorance, it's a story full of all kinds of abuse, it's a story of friendships gone either very right or very wrong, a story that fills you with emptiness, sadness, the certainty that everything is awful, corrupted and pointless when there's so much hurting in this life!
Literally you just read through the protagonist's life thinking "oh, come on, what more absolute tragedy can possibly strike this one (1) person throughout one (1) lifetime?" and it always gets worse (oh, and did I mention soul-draining by any chance?)
In terms of the actual story though, this long and to be honest at times a bit far-fetched plot did manage to keep me interested (and heartbroken) the whole time and even though it's a thicc @ss book it manages to not feel like it drags at all!
As for the writing: I did appreciate quite a few relatable and well-written quotes, and it's definitely a professionally written story, but I just feel like the writing didn't absolutely blow me away or got a spot among the most incredibly well-written books I've ever read! Perhaps it could've been the greek translation I read being non adequate but I did read part of it from the original text and it still didn't absolutely impress me!
Spoiler
self-harm, suicide and suicidal thoughts, severe mental health issues, child sexual abuse, child prostitutionAfter getting that out of the way, this is an absolutely heartbreaking story of people hurting people either willingly or due to ignorance, it's a story full of all kinds of abuse, it's a story of friendships gone either very right or very wrong, a story that fills you with emptiness, sadness, the certainty that everything is awful, corrupted and pointless when there's so much hurting in this life!
Literally you just read through the protagonist's life thinking "oh, come on, what more absolute tragedy can possibly strike this one (1) person throughout one (1) lifetime?" and it always gets worse (oh, and did I mention soul-draining by any chance?)
In terms of the actual story though, this long and to be honest at times a bit far-fetched plot did manage to keep me interested (and heartbroken) the whole time and even though it's a thicc @ss book it manages to not feel like it drags at all!
As for the writing: I did appreciate quite a few relatable and well-written quotes, and it's definitely a professionally written story, but I just feel like the writing didn't absolutely blow me away or got a spot among the most incredibly well-written books I've ever read! Perhaps it could've been the greek translation I read being non adequate but I did read part of it from the original text and it still didn't absolutely impress me!