A review by candoreads
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

If I could give this book zero stars, I would. I want to preface this review by saying it is going to be LITTERED with spoilers. I'll try to mark them, but you don't want to read this review if you don't want the book spoiled for you, but I'll tell you when we get there. The writing in this book is pretentious. It's preachy, and goes in circles, and circles, and circles, and circles, for 800 pages. For 800 pages this book says the same thing over and over and over again. Using the same metaphor and the same flowery language to make it seem smarter and more interesting. The spoilers start now. The characters in this book are terrible, and I am about to say things that are going to make me sound like a horrible, unempathetic, uncaring, and hateful person. Jude is the worst character in this book. He is a bad friend and a bad person. Yes, he has had HORRIBLE things happen to him and that is terrible. But your trauma is not an excuse for how you treat your friends. Jude pushed his friends away, and held them at arm's length all because he thought so horribly and hatefully of himself. He expected everyone who cared about him to leave and tried to push them into leaving, but then if they did leave, then they were only proving him right in that he was worthless. Jude needed immense amount of therapy and the fact that he refused to seek help and to try to live his life and get better makes him a bad person. You trauma can explain how and why you act but it is not an excuse for how and why you act. When you realize that your trauma is affecting your relationships, or you have someone point it out to you, then it is your responsibility as a functioning adult in society to do what you need to get better. Go to a Buddhist camp, seek therapy, move to a nudist colony, go backpacking through the mountains, touch grass, I literally don't care what it is, but you have to do it. Jude had every person in his corner, loving friends, a SOULMATE (because that's what he and Willem were), parents who loved him, a doctor/friend who cared for him IMMENSELY, and he threw it away. He wasted his life hating himself and full of regret. And you know what? Maybe I am a bad person, but karma came for him. He tried to kill himself and thought that it would make everyone's life better and karma showed him that having someone you love with your entire being die and leave you is the worst thing imaginable. I have never hated a book or a character as much as I loathe this one. I only finished this book because I don't DNF books and because I have a rule that you can only review a book if you've finished it, because what if the books gets better and you gave up? THIS BOOK DOES NOT DO THAT! I am angry writing this review, angry that I read 800 pages of a man throwing a pity party for his entire life JUST FOR HIM TO KILL HIMSELF IN THE END ANYWAY. This book is going on my bookshelf, because to donate it or give it to anyone else is a punishment I would not wish on my worst enemy.
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