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A review by ellekedesmit
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
I actually quite liked the start of the book, It was interesting and intriguing. i liked how the four friends were described equally and how different perspectives were given without the scenes feeling repetitive. However after this it started going down hill for me and i found the story mainly frustrating, rather than sad.
The main focus is put on judy, and by the middle of the book he becomes almost the sole focus, which i found disappointing.
My main struggles were with Judy's friends, mainly willem and his “therapist” Andy.
As someone who has struggled with self harm, the repetitive and overly detailed descriptions of Judy's cutting, were quite triggering for me and felt unnecessary.
In the middle of the book Judy is around 30 and he cuts himself almost every night after, basically every minor inconvenience. And andy is aware of this, because he counts the cuts (which seemed a bit odd to me too), but he does not intervene once! And his reasoning being because judy is “high functioning” and that because he’s consistent in his cutting, the likely hood of him attempting suicide is lower. Personally i find that severely unprofessional to hear from someone that is supposedly a professional. How can you let someone do that to themselves and justify it by how well they are “pretending to be normal” and by fucking statistics.
Besides that, I find it highly unlikely that Judy's only coping mechanism is cutting (until after the suïcide, which was insanely predictable), that he feels no guilt about it, and that he makes no attempt to find help and find a way to cut less in 40 years!
How everyone was so surprised by the suicide and the way that the people around Judy reacted to the suicide boggled me. Judy refuses to talk to a therapist, and the people around him just give in to this. When judy starts confiding in willem, im glad he finally says something, but i think willem needs therapy to process all that trauma.
I found the relationship between willem and judy both interesting and horrible. I enjoyed seeing how judy found new more healthier ways to cope and was generally trying to get better. But he needed help with that from a professional. The sex parts infuriated me, because it was so clear that judy did not want it and there were so many signs, all willem did was tell judy to stop cutting. What was that going to do?
The way judy talks about his body, his disabilities and how he feels about himself, i found convincing and understanding at the start. But after over 20 years had passed and he still thought the exact same, it started getting on my nerve a bit. I know everyone has bad days, but it is harmful to the disabled community to portray a disabled character this way. The repetitiveness of the mentioning of how disgusting he is because he is in a wheelchair, was so uncomfortable to read.
Dont even let me go into the casual opinion dumping of autistic induviduals, that was so out of place and unnecassery.
The monastery story seemed quite realistic and already horrible and severely traumatizing to me, but the writer had to add more, with the prostituting. And if u thought it ended there, you are very wrong. Because there just keeps coming more horribleness. It started feeling like some gross fantasy of the author, higly unrealistic and very unnecessary.
After my intense frustration with this book i looked up some reviews to see if others felt a similar way, and i found that even more trauma stories are added, and just traumatic experience follows traumatic experience.
I read somewhere that the goal of the story was to show that some people are just untreatable, and un-“fixable”. Which i disagree with, and i think that a lot that happened in the book could have easily been prevented if judy received the proper help. And personally i think there are enough people in this story that should have stepped up and done something. To get him admitted and gat him to talk to someone professional.
The main focus is put on judy, and by the middle of the book he becomes almost the sole focus, which i found disappointing.
My main struggles were with Judy's friends, mainly willem and his “therapist” Andy.
As someone who has struggled with self harm, the repetitive and overly detailed descriptions of Judy's cutting, were quite triggering for me and felt unnecessary.
In the middle of the book Judy is around 30 and he cuts himself almost every night after, basically every minor inconvenience. And andy is aware of this, because he counts the cuts (which seemed a bit odd to me too), but he does not intervene once! And his reasoning being because judy is “high functioning” and that because he’s consistent in his cutting, the likely hood of him attempting suicide is lower. Personally i find that severely unprofessional to hear from someone that is supposedly a professional. How can you let someone do that to themselves and justify it by how well they are “pretending to be normal” and by fucking statistics.
Besides that, I find it highly unlikely that Judy's only coping mechanism is cutting (until after the suïcide, which was insanely predictable), that he feels no guilt about it, and that he makes no attempt to find help and find a way to cut less in 40 years!
How everyone was so surprised by the suicide and the way that the people around Judy reacted to the suicide boggled me. Judy refuses to talk to a therapist, and the people around him just give in to this. When judy starts confiding in willem, im glad he finally says something, but i think willem needs therapy to process all that trauma.
I found the relationship between willem and judy both interesting and horrible. I enjoyed seeing how judy found new more healthier ways to cope and was generally trying to get better. But he needed help with that from a professional. The sex parts infuriated me, because it was so clear that judy did not want it and there were so many signs, all willem did was tell judy to stop cutting. What was that going to do?
The way judy talks about his body, his disabilities and how he feels about himself, i found convincing and understanding at the start. But after over 20 years had passed and he still thought the exact same, it started getting on my nerve a bit. I know everyone has bad days, but it is harmful to the disabled community to portray a disabled character this way. The repetitiveness of the mentioning of how disgusting he is because he is in a wheelchair, was so uncomfortable to read.
Dont even let me go into the casual opinion dumping of autistic induviduals, that was so out of place and unnecassery.
The monastery story seemed quite realistic and already horrible and severely traumatizing to me, but the writer had to add more, with the prostituting. And if u thought it ended there, you are very wrong. Because there just keeps coming more horribleness. It started feeling like some gross fantasy of the author, higly unrealistic and very unnecessary.
After my intense frustration with this book i looked up some reviews to see if others felt a similar way, and i found that even more trauma stories are added, and just traumatic experience follows traumatic experience.
I read somewhere that the goal of the story was to show that some people are just untreatable, and un-“fixable”. Which i disagree with, and i think that a lot that happened in the book could have easily been prevented if judy received the proper help. And personally i think there are enough people in this story that should have stepped up and done something. To get him admitted and gat him to talk to someone professional.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail