A Little Life: A Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE
A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE
A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
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Community Reviews
For the longest time, I had such a hate/hate relationship with this book - it's taken me months to finish. Months to listen to the endless amounts of trauma one individual can go through, let alone the repercussions that has on a friend group, and the attending branches of said group.
But today I listened to the last 8 hours nearly without pausing, and I see now the truth of this story.
Yes, there is copious amounts of trauma, that to a point almost feel like - how could one even think this up to do to a character, let alone let them survive it?
But then it sits with you, and it sits with you, and it fucking sits with you. And it asks you so heavily to look between the scars and the apologies and the hospital visits for those brief flashes of happiness. The mundane, neatly domestic moments that truthfully most people ignore but in this case we're forced to look at harder all for the sake of searching for a light at the end of the tunnel.
The light is brief, flavored by lime and sun-tanned skin and summers spent outside and it BURNS. You sit there listening, reading, waiting for the inevitable reminder that life is brutal, and vicious, and has claws and before you know it the claws swipe at you, knock you off your feet, and have you sobbing as though you've been struck.
And the crazy thing is? It's worth it. All of the hurt and the pain and the "how is this possible?"
All for the happy parts. Because friendship and the bonds of it, or rather friendship and the remainders of it-whether lost to time or other painful things make life worth it, and so too does this book become worth it.
So read it and rip your heart out. Read it and weep, and weep and weep. But know that you'll come out of it looking for the mundane memories of your life. The Lispenard Streets of your youth. The art pieces of /your/ personal gallery. Read it, and learn what it means to be human despite the multifaceted way being human means to be flawed and loved because of it.
But today I listened to the last 8 hours nearly without pausing, and I see now the truth of this story.
Yes, there is copious amounts of trauma, that to a point almost feel like - how could one even think this up to do to a character, let alone let them survive it?
But then it sits with you, and it sits with you, and it fucking sits with you. And it asks you so heavily to look between the scars and the apologies and the hospital visits for those brief flashes of happiness. The mundane, neatly domestic moments that truthfully most people ignore but in this case we're forced to look at harder all for the sake of searching for a light at the end of the tunnel.
The light is brief, flavored by lime and sun-tanned skin and summers spent outside and it BURNS. You sit there listening, reading, waiting for the inevitable reminder that life is brutal, and vicious, and has claws and before you know it the claws swipe at you, knock you off your feet, and have you sobbing as though you've been struck.
And the crazy thing is? It's worth it. All of the hurt and the pain and the "how is this possible?"
All for the happy parts. Because friendship and the bonds of it, or rather friendship and the remainders of it-whether lost to time or other painful things make life worth it, and so too does this book become worth it.
So read it and rip your heart out. Read it and weep, and weep and weep. But know that you'll come out of it looking for the mundane memories of your life. The Lispenard Streets of your youth. The art pieces of /your/ personal gallery. Read it, and learn what it means to be human despite the multifaceted way being human means to be flawed and loved because of it.
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