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A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara

Start date: May 12, 2015

Finish date: June 30, 2015

Discussion: (Aug/Sept 2012) Canada

Why we're reading this: A Little Life was the winner of the May/June book of the month poll with 6 out of 15 votes.
[close] A Little Life was the winner of the May/June book of the month poll with 6 out of 15 votes.

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What Members Thought

Oct 27, 2015 Merry rated it it was amazing

This not so little life is dark and painful. The author has skillfully developed four friends designed to draw you in, and that is exactly what happens. The foursome is interesting enough, but as the chapters progressed, one person in particular, Jude, captured my heart as I witnessed his unsettling accounts of abuse he experienced as a child/teenager. Throughout the 720 pages you hope to move past this abuse but instead, just when you think all the abuse has been disclosed, the author takes you
This not so little life is dark and painful. The author has skillfully developed four friends designed to draw you in, and that is exactly what happens. The foursome is interesting enough, but as the chapters progressed, one person in particular, Jude, captured my heart as I witnessed his unsettling accounts of abuse he experienced as a child/teenager. Throughout the 720 pages you hope to move past this abuse but instead, just when you think all the abuse has been disclosed, the author takes you even deeper into Jude’s pain. I patiently waited for Jude to heal “thyself”, a type of dialect I intentionally use as if trying to invoke a higher power to intervene. But recovery was fleeting, and pain and misery was persistent and relentless.

Very early on I discovered I was too deeply invested to abandon Jude when things got tough. I couldn’t abandon this book, abandon Jude as so many did throughout his life, so I continued to read. I read to the point where I feel my mind was scarred, as there are just some places you never want to go. The author successfully narrates not just the physical aspects of the abuse, but how this abuse affects the mind of Jude the child, then Jude the adult as he tries to assemble some sort of normalcy in life and relationships.

Personally, I found this book too revealing and too depressing. Was it really necessary to reveal so much of Jude’s pain, emotional and physical, repeatedly? But that is exactly what the author wanted, as she reveals in an interview how she “insisted that the novel’s edges not be softened”. Refusing to omit much of the repetitive text, in the interview this author is described as “a tragedian”, she is drawn to the futility of life and presents her work in a powerfully irresistible way that the reader can digest and walk away with a reminder that the world is full of difficult truths, and this author does not avoid them.

And so I read on, thru the pain, helpless to offer solace to Jude. I could have stopped reading at any time, after all it's a book, a work of fiction, but I was drawn in and I had to finish the book because I cared about Jude.

This book is profound. Now I will deal with the grief I am left with.
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3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 22, 2015 Christine Seifert rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-books

Reading this book is like being punched in the gut repeatedly. That's a compliment. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

May 16, 2015 Barb rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this one. Great characters. Four instead of five stars for two reasons: big twist was not a surprise, the story seemed to be headed that way for a while, and at a few places I felt as if the story was dragging a bit, found myself skimming. Well written and will likely stay with me for a while.

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Apr 11, 2016 Karen rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, wpff-short-list, lfpc

It wins as the most irritating book I've read this year. Too often I just got stuck on stupid. For example the local community of monks that has no school or orphanage attached starts to add diapers and baby formula to their shopping list should raise some suspicions; after all this is 20th century America not 18th century Europe.
(Still shaking my head over the sociopathic, pedophile monks) ...more

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