A review by anemosise
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

dark emotional reflective slow-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
oh my i am conflicted. understand the criticism deeply, have yet to watch interviews with the author and tbh we'll see if i do! but! my oh my! what effortlessly beautiful writing and what beautiful explorations of human relationships. the dynamics of the (mostly) loveable main characters are so fascinating to me. the beauty of jude slowly learning to stop self-sabotaging his relationships with harold and willem and andy. beautiful. however. i wanted a lot more from jb and especially malcom, and some side characters deserved better development (richard, people at the law firm, caleb, maybe even ana? though I didn't mind some being less developed and simply reappearing names!)
oh and how powerful the ending would have been. if despite everything, despite all the trauma, jude still decided to live. what is the book saying by having him kill himself at the end? some experienced trauma is too unrecoverable for people? i guess I just find that level of pessimism disappointing. gotta think on it more.
i think simply reducing this novel to trauma porn is incredibly reductive of a lot of the work it puts into exploring.. well.. the little moments in life. the people who make the days worth living. yea idk. i think i liked a lot of this, but it left a really uncomfortable distaste in my mouth. man.
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