Review by walskishere - A Little Life

walskishere 's review for:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

4.0

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Oh boy. I finally finished and I have a lot of thoughts.

First of all, I did not cry and I'm so proud! I'm an emotional person AND have the distinct pleasure of having gone through some of the traumas in the book, so not crying is truly astounding. I did tear up once, but they all managed to stay in my ducts.

The reasons I think that people don't like this book:

character driven, rather than plot driven
the main characters all have prominent flaws (except maybe Harold; we stan)
they can't see the happiness and love; they only focus on the pain and suffering

A Little Life did a really great job of capturing several lives and how they intertwine. Yanagihara does a fantastic job of giving us each character's reactions to certain incidents. There are a few times that, for example, Jude thinks Willem is feeling or thinking one thing, then it's revealed that that's not what Willem was actually thinking.

I do wish that we had gotten more of Malcolm and JB, and maybe even Harold. I also wish we had more of them in college. I think that would help understand the bond of them more, and be more invested in the characters, especially Malcolm and JB. I think this is a major reason I didn't rate this higher. A small thing, but I wish the chapters were labeled with whose POV we were in, because that was hard to discern at the beginning.

To touch on the "trauma p*rn" categorization that some give it, I don't think that's accurate. I think the point of getting invested in the characters is to feel almost there with them. I think Hanya was trying to replicate the experience of living life with people you care about. I'm not sure if this is making sense, but these are real things that happen to people. Just because it doesn't or hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean it isn't a real experience or that it's exploitative. I've been through some of the stuff in the book and it's not fun, but that's life. The book tells a story of lives from their "start" to finish. It shows the love, and the pain, and the hardships, and the good times. That's how life is. This isn't to say that everyone should or can read this. I encourage everyone to research the content/trigger warnings prior to reading it.

Overall, I think this was a great portrayal of how complicated and intricated human lives and relationships are.

Content Warnings