Review by ellesbigworld - A Little Life

ellesbigworld 's review for:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I FUCKING DID IT

I should have taken the fact that I found this book on the side of the road, beaten and bruised, as a sign that maybe I shouldn’t spend the next 2 months reading it. I feel like I am Alan Parrish when he found Jumanji in a construction site and now that curiosity killed the cat, I’m running through a grocery store fighting off Van Pelt with laundry detergent and a price-check scanner. In the same way, I felt determined to finish this book, reach Jumanji, and call out its name. (And then hide it at the bottom of a lake for no one to find it again). This story will make your mind turn to mush, wish for illiteracy, and force you to fight off demons you didn’t even know you were running from. A Little Life forces an introspection of your own little life and the events that make you who you are. As much as they are insufferable, whiney babies, I think we can all find a place for Jude, Willem, Harold, JB, and Malcolm in our thoughts as we endure the epic poem that Hanya Yanagihara has chained us up in her basement with. I have gone through such a cycle of emotions carrying this book with me for all of 2025 so far and it has taught me two things. One of them being to not listen to people about book recommendations. And two being to listen to people about book recommendations. So many things can be true at once and through this book, I have witnessed a new meaning to the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. I feel simultaneously conflicted and secure in my opinion of this book being “do not read this pretentious trauma porn” as well as “step out of your comfort zone and read this pretensions trauma porn.” I can feel several mindless, one-dimensional books heading my way and I will absolutely not be fighting them off. As so many things can be true at once, I feel the need for something to ground me once again after being flung into a strange new world where things are not black and white OR a thousand shades of grey, but a new color palette entirely. I’m proud of myself for finishing, but I will not run this race again. Read the book, don’t read the book, I don’t care, but recommending this book to someone is crazier to me than reading it at all.

Content Warnings