A review by gabiharvey
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"and so i try to be kind to everything i see, and in everything i see, i see him."

i finished this book on june twelfth. jude took his life, once and for all on june twelfth.

this book - i am completely and utterly speechless. even though i just finished it, i can tell, i know without a doubt, that this book has changed me. in what ways? i don't quite know yet, but i know it has.

"'my poor jude. my poor sweetheart.' and with that, he starts to cry, for no one has ever called him sweetheart..."

"'my sweetheart,' harold says again, and he wants him to stop; he wants him to never stop. 'my baby.' and he cries and cries..."

what's the most heartbreaking, is the inevitability of it all. from the start, jude's exit from this world via suicide was always obvious, always something that wouldn't come off as a surprise. and yet, being human, naturally i held onto some slight hope that he would find happiness in the end, that he would be okay. in the end, when his suicide was revealed, it was both a shock and not one, because for me personally, i just gaslit myself so hard, even though the truth was there in plain sight from page one.

it's utterly insane to me, how real this book has become. i swear jude st. francis, willem ragnarsson, and all the other characters are very real people. i don't know how yanagihara managed to do so, i just know she did.

having a main character who is disabled, abused both physically and emotionally, and consistently declining in overall health for the entire duration of the book is, like i mentioned earlier,  a recipe for disaster. however, this also makes the book something beautiful in its tragedy, where as the reader, you know to appreciate the good moments, no matter how big or small. seeing jude achieve happiness with willem was something beyond rewarding to see, even though it was never necessarily "perfect", such as willem's choice of ignoring the fact that jude was miserable having sex, and resulted in jude burning himself, willem throwing a razor at him, and the entirety of that portion of the book. But, when they apolgized to one another, and talked, my heart ached and healed in a way words can't describe. seeing willem continue to accept jude as he tells his entire backstory, from the monastery to dr. traylor, was something i never thought would come to fruition. for jude to see that he was still loved after that, it was something beyond describing. without a doubt, the happy years was my favorite section of the book, especially after willem and jude's talk about his past. seeing willem worry incessantly for jude with his wounds, his staying at home as opposed to working, his comforting him with his nightmares, telling jude who he really is, his waking up and holding jude so tight when jude wanted to cut himself, his motivation for jude to take care of himself, his crying at jude's bed before the amputation operation (i broke so hard here), his being there as jude was put in a medically induced coma, his reassurance to jude that harold would never do what those clients did to him, his presence as jude learned to walk once again, or when he seized in bed (and willem thought that was it, poor baby :(), or tucked him in bed after noticing jude's dozing at the dinner table, or helping jude take his final walk with his real legs, or teaching jude how to dance in the bathroom, or touring that famous structure in europe together, or treating jude as nothing less than normal as he sat without his prothesis, or spending hours in the hospital with him, or taking a walk with jude even though it worried him, or attending jude's work party, in which jude came practically running (i know he actually can't but as close as he could, i'm sure) to willem when he saw willem tug on his left ear. 
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