A review by libbysbooks_
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

5.0

Wow, how do I summarise my feelings about this book? Jude’s story is one that I will never forget. The writing is nothing but magnificent. I absolutely adore how beautiful the imagery and writing style is. I’ve never felt in such awe for how an author writes. The story is such a heartbreaking tale of how the world can chew up and spit people out. A lot of people have said it’s trauma for the sake of trauma, but I massively disagree. I related to a lot of Jude’s thinking styles and his struggles with self harm and history of abuse. I felt connected to him in ways I don’t often feel connected to characters in books. His story is a sad, yet realistic one. The things that have happened to him seem unthinkable and yet they happen every day. His relationships with his friends and especially Willem filled me with so much joy. His relationship with Harold was heartwarming. I adored the way Harold thought of him and reading his letters broke my heart. This is a story of the horrors of life and the aftermath of childhood abuse, the aftermath of domestic abuse, the aftermath of grief and I appreciated how real it was. This is definitely one of my favourite books, but I would say to anyone wanting to read it, proceed with caution as the descriptions of self harm and abuse, partially sexual abuse are very graphic.