A Little Life Paperback – 28 Aug. 2024

Beautifully written, compulsive reading (I read this book very quickly, at one point I had a straight 10 hour session). It's a really tough read at points, so I can't imagine what it must have taken out of Ms Yanagihara to write. I think this book will stay with me, but I'm not sure I'll ever want to read it again; it was so gutwrenchingly heartbreaking at points that I had to put it down, try not to cry, remember "it's not real, it's not happening to me and my friends" (even though it felt like, feels like, it was exactly that). Whilst I was reading this, I happened to see a review online that said: "It's not overstating it to say that this book has changed my pre-conceived ideas of what friendship is" - or something like that. I couldn't have put it better.

Beautifully written. I was completely absorbed by the characters and storyline. I didn’t want to put it down and was devastated when it ended. Truly wonderful; a book that will stay with me.

There’s so many reviews of this novel, and it has been so widely critically acclaimed, that it is difficult to come up with anything new and a review almost seems pointless. I am no literature expert; I just say what I think without in depth analysis. Moreover, I tend to only write reviews when I have found a novel extremely good or very bad. If it was just “so-so” then I tend not to comment. For me, this was neither brilliant nor bad, but I do feel a need to comment.I have no doubt that this could have been one of the most magnificent stories that I had ever read; in parts it felt like that. There were periods of wonderfully rich writing, combined with moving story lines that I found engrossing. I can see why it is so critically acclaimed. Unfortunately, however, I found too many parts really hard going. There was a particular section, from about halfway through, that was extremely difficult reading, both in terms of the writing style, that became monotonous, and in terms of the narrative or action (or lack thereof). I get the deep and horrendous complexities being covered, but I very, very nearly discarded it; however, by that time, I was so far through I just felt that I must persevere. I was glad I did, because, although deeply upsetting the final few chapters were well worth the effort of getting through the tough parts.If I was to make a couple of specific criticisms, they would be that I found the shifting timeline hard to follow. I also did not like the technique of starting chapters by leaving the reader unaware of where we were in time and space and who the narrator was. This does not make writing great in my book; it is just annoying. I also wondered if someone could really self-harm to this extreme degree whilst still being able to hold down a hugely high-profile job, working ridiculous numbers of hours each day, sometimes barley sleeping, and perform apparently brilliantly in court. It stretched my imagination. I also marvelled at the proportion of gay people in the story. I know this sounds trite, but everyone’s brother seemed to have a boyfriend and everyone’s sister a girlfriend. This was an unfamiliar world. These are banal points, I realise that. But hey, we can all have our say.The last two things I want to say is that, in totality, this book is deeply depressing and upsetting. It happens that I read it at a time when my own mental health was not strong, occasioned by an ageing body and a life which began badly and was punctuated by mistakes and failures. Anyone in a similar position should avoid this novel. I cried a lot reading this.Secondly, I first bought a version of this book with the still image “Orgasmic Man” on the front cover. After a week of seeing this, I could stand it no longer and I had to turn to Amazon to buy this version as shown above. The images of what I take to be a representation of Lispenard Street are benign and evocative. Orgasmic Man is malignant and brutal, a bit like the story I suppose, and I get the paradox of orgasm and pain, but I still think such a cover was a very bad idea.

I couldn’t put this book down. It robbed me of hours of sleep, it distracted me during the day - so strong was its emotional impact on me. The story spans the lifetime of four friends who meet at college for the first time and end up rich and famous in New York. I appreciated that the author tied all loose ends and delivered the complete life story of the friendship between her characters, over decades, through all the highs and lows of their life. She explored every character in depth and they possess complex and convincing personalities.These four young men originally come from very different backgrounds whether cultural, racial, social, financial and emotional – and one of them, Jude, come from the unknown and, as the story unfolds, one discovers his horrific past of child abuse. I like how the bond between all friends (the original four accumulate a few more dear friends) transcends all barriers, removing race and sexual preference as a marker of difference.The central theme for me was friendship: how vital it is in our lives, how it can make us bear the worst pain, overcome our deepest fears, push aside our pasts, survive our traumas and carry us through years and years of life and even make us achieve what we never thought we could.Hanya Yanagihara demonstrates a deep understanding of self-hatred and self-destruction and writes convincingly with great empathy abuse in childhood and doesn’t believe one can ever overcome the damage. Jude bears his scars and his nightmares throughout his life. Only work provides him with the escapism that makes survival possible.There are a lot of other themes in this book: how rallying together to help Jude creates a strong bond between all his friends, how caring for someone gives purpose to life, how someone who has been unloved and destroyed in childhood can still find so much love in life, how work occupied most of her characters’ lives but played only a minor part in what was truly important for them in life, how love can be fulfilling without sex, how love can be so strong that life has no meaning without it, how hard some of us find to live through everyday, how child abuse is so widespread in the institutions we believe to be there to protect children.Finally, it is the author’s talent at story telling, the clarity of her prose and her analysis of emotional turmoil that glued me to her book and, in the end, left me more than satisfied. I had a heart breaking but highly rewarding insight in the little life of her characters. THE ISLAND GIRL