A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life

By Hanya Yanagihara

  • Release Date: 2015-03-10
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 2,767 Ratings

Description

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.

Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Reviews

  • So moving!

    5
    By lalooman
    The author’s character development is superb! I definitely felt like I knew these characters personally and I internalized all of their emotions as my own. This story shows the best and the worst side of men. Obviously, the abusers were the worst of the worst and yet the loving courageous men like Harold, Willem, Andy, Malcolm were the best of the best! I highly recommend reading it if you can emotionally withstand the pain. It’s beautifully written and tragically sad…
  • beware: heart wrenching

    5
    By neoneyelids
    this book totally destroyed me in good and bad ways. in some parts it read like a journal and in others it felt like there was a dagger in my heart. i recommend this book for its detail and storyline. just beware, you might have to put it down and come back to it when you can handle it again.
  • Overrated

    1
    By saracor11
    The book is literary but it is so exhausting having to read detail after detail that doesn't pertain to the story. Not only should this have a trigger warning, the excessive jumping back and forth made it difficult to be emotional through the story. I read this for the heart break and only found myself irritated.
  • A lot of emotions

    3
    By Aleisle
    I grew to like this book. At first I found it was a very hard read and wanted to quit several times but I pushed through and then found I could not put it down. I feel as if at times it was hard to follow along. The author was jumping between the characters point of views from one sentence to the next in some parts and I was lost trying to figure out who was telling the story. Also I thought she could have shortened the chapters. A lot of It I feel was very unnecessary information used as a sort of filler to make the book longer. After pushing through all of this I feel like the story finally got to a point where I was very interested and started having a real emotional connection with these characters. I 100% feel like Jude endured a horrible life and think that this sort of thing really happens to people in real life and it’s just horrible. I wanted to reach into the book and grab him and just give him the love he longed for and then when he lost the one person who he gave his heart to and let him in, it just tore me up. I was a mess the rest of the time after that until I finished the book. As much as I ended up liking the book, I gave it 3 stars because as much extra “filler” material that was given along the journey of these characters, I feel like the ending was very rushed and I felt a little cheated that knowing something good could have came from all the bad. I was left feeling emotionally overwhelmed and frustrated.
  • A little life

    5
    By Alma Adelyn
    Soul wrecking and so beautiful. No words can describe the immense emotion while reading this beautiful piece of art.
  • A little life

    4
    By hiner79er
    I did love this book for making me cry but it was a little long for my liking
  • Fantastic First Half

    4
    By AuteurAuteur
    Then too sad
  • Fantastic

    5
    By AlaynaEngelking
    Couldn’t stop reading. Very captive! Emotional story!
  • The book that made me change my mind

    5
    By 78hi
    I tought this book wasn’t gonna be sad but after reading it it certainly was I was having a good day and saw videos about this book saying it’s sad and emotional so I read it and boy would u know I got devastated I cried so hard every day and I still change my mind about this book. But overall great book 5/5 (10/10) LOVE IT! read this WITH CAUTION.
  • you will never forget this

    5
    By llivianne
    astounding and earth shattering. a story that feels bigger and vaster than a hundred lifetimes