A review by rawrr_reads
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

challenging emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Mmmmh where do I really start with this book? One thing I would like to admit is that I genuinely really liked reading this book, it was an incredibly tough book to read, with it’s harrowing details about trauma, abuse and self-harm but there was this sense of genuineness in all the details of this book, you really get to feel the emotions through the lines (which, in this case can be bad because these aren’t necessarily emotions that you want to feel) but you can see how much work the writer put into creating such a depressingly beautiful piece of art. 

Sometimes, reading books that sort of drape this blanket of melancholia over your life is cathartic, it sort of makes you feel less alone about the negative emotions that you have in your head. Of course, there is no way I can compare my feelings to what the characters, especially Jude has been through and is feeling, but it feels good to focus on what they are going through and cry for them instead of crying about my own life. 

Although I’ve read more than 300 books in my entire lifetime, it is very rare that I cry while reading them. This has been one of the very few books that have made me actually cry, and multiple times too. The first chapter that I teared up for was chapter 3 under ‘The Vanities’, that chapter just hit me a little differently, and sort of propelled me into reflecting over my own thoughts and feelings that I’ve been trying to tamp down. And then came ‘The Happy Years’, which made me tear up multiple times throughout its 3 chapters. But what really broke me were the last two sections of the book; Dear Comrade and Lispenard Street (it ends where it all started). Those two chapters talk about grief and loss in such- an addictive way. Suddenly you’re pulled into their grief and you’re crying with them, you’re feeling all their emotions and you constantly need to put the book down to collect yourself and continue reading again.