A Little Life
By Hanya Yanagihara
Publication Year: 2015
Type: Fiction
Genre: contemporary, mental health, LGBTQ
Read on 2018-10-17
View additional specs on this book in Muhan’s 2018 Reading Survey ➞
★★★☆☆
I can’t believe it only took me a dedicated 8 days to finish this book - it feels like it’s been a decade since I started. The first 200 were confusing with all the characters but pleasant as I discovered Yanagihara’s writing style, especially in her depictions of Jude through the perspective of his friends. The middle 300 pages or so were a blur of increasing horrors. I literally came home one night after reading this on the train, flung my groceries on the floor, and sat clenching my whole body as I flipped through page after page trying to seek some sort of resolution. I started getting very mad around the part right at the end of Calum, which tapered to a kind of - yup sounds about right - by the time of the car crash. I think I just got to a point where I just wanted to shield myself from the pain so I disengaged. Once I’ve recovered a little I’ll go watch some book reviews of people who passionately love and passionately hate this book to just...process...
Also I don’t care if I sound like a fucking millennial snowflake sjw or whatever but this shit is straight up torture porn like it’s not solely that but if this isn’t torture porn I don’t even know what to tell you.
I probably won’t actively seek out Yanahigara again. If she writes a short story for the New Yorker or something I’ll read it but this...never again...
