In Review: A Little Life
For the first time, I’m reviewing a book I don’t recommend. I can’t stress this enough. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. This review is purely written to express my feelings and opinions about this book. It is not an incentive for you to pick it up. So don’t read this book. Please don’t read it. Unless you are prepared to deal with the story inside.
Title: A Little Life Author: Hanya Yanagihara Publication year: 2015 Length: 32 hours 51 minutes Genre: Literary Fiction Pace: Slow Story focus: Character
A Little Life is about a life not so little. We follow a group of friends fresh out of college in New York: Jude, Malcolm, Willem, and JB. The story dives into the private life of each character, the relationship between them, and general life changes. It’s a book about growing up as adults. Although, the story reaches a point where Jude becomes the single protagonist turning into Jude’s life story. His past and the consequences of it in the present.
For such a huge novel, it reads quite easily. I found myself sliding through the text without any problem. But while the wording can be accessible, the same can’t be said about the topics. A Little Life has an extensive list of content warnings. I won’t even try to go over all of them, so instead, I’ll leave here a link to The Storygraph page with all the CWs. In short, it’s a heavy book. A cluster of childhood trauma and abuse shaping the character in the present. And we get to see both. Because of it, the book felt more than anything like a character study. An approach to human psychology in an extreme scenario. A cause and effect experiment. And that’s the only reason why I enjoyed reading this book. Apart from understanding the motivations of Jude, his thoughts, and his logic, there’s nothing to be enjoyed in the story. The book is incredibly sad. It doesn’t have a happy ending. Actually, it has a very sad one. The bad guys win. And so, I believe that unless you take some sort of “enjoyment” out of understanding human psychology, this won’t be a good reading experience.
As much as I like this book, I also wish some things were done differently. Jude’s traumatising past is revealed in small chunks to keep the mystery lingering for a bit longer. To keep the reader engaged and wanting to read more to get the next little bits of information. Although it’s an abusive and very traumatic past, it shouldn’t be my desire, as a reader, to read more to find out all the F-ed up things Jude went through. At some point, I felt like I only cared about the awful stuff, and the present was too happy for me to enjoy. Because I was too curious. And it leaves a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth. One way is a classic writing tactic. But the other is about a complicated topic. And for that, in my opinion, it would be better to have one part of the book completely dedicated to his past without interruptions. Exposing everything at once. The mystery would be lost after, but the characters would keep the story moving, as they did.
Another topic very present in the story is friendship. The book begins with a group of friends. We get to know them a little bit and the dynamics between them. Although I never liked their relationships. Jude and Willem were the closest ones, and I saw their friendship as real and caring. But with Malcolm and JB, it never felt sincere. Both characters came across as people detached from reality, living in their own bubbles. So, as the story moved along, I didn’t miss their presence. With Willem, it’s a different story. Their close friendship keeps him present throughout the book, but even such a lovely friendship changed for me and changed my opinion of Willem. In the end, the book was about Jude and the only character I cared about was Jude.
These relationships could be an extensive discussion in itself. If they were being supportive. If not. If they were adding up to the already existing problems. If not. And many more discussions can be held. About how Jude feels. How others feel in the presence of Jude’s actions. The duality of a simple gesture. How complex human emotions are. If help can be an act of selfishness. If suicide can be an act of love. How to give support to a loved one. And many more. The best part is the book doesn’t answer any questions or define an idea or principle. It just presents the different perspectives of the situation. On one hand, there are Jude’s feelings motivated by his traumas, and on the other, the people that love him and what him to be happy.
Despite the ending, I don’t agree with the title of the book: A Little Life. Jude’s life isn’t little. In fact, it’s very full of happy moments, of friends, of family, of love, of work he enjoys, of travel, of success, of achievement… He lived for a long time, not as long as he could, but still. As I see it, he lived all those years despite suffering because of the love and care he was surrounded by. So, the end for me is a mixture of hopefulness and sadness. Hopeful Jude also experienced happiness despite the countless attempts at robbing that from him. And sadness because Jude never believed he deserved to be happy.
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