A review by vulcajes
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.0

Oh my god do not read this book. It is 700 pages of shitty trauma porn and I hated every second. Jude isn't a likeable character (pity ≠ liked), Willem sucks, and I WISH Malcolm and J.B. had more time to shine. Malcolm is entirely ignored for the plot to revolve solely around Jude's continuous trauma and J.B. only comes up to traumatise Jude more. It's good to write about complex traumatic experiences but holy shit the entire book is just one trauma after the other. The whole moral of the story is that some people should just kill themselves after EVERYTHING Jude's adoptive parents did for him. Justice for J.B. and Malcolm, we never got a satisfying story for them, let alone an ending. Fuck this book royally.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail