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A review by photogeezer
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
3.0
This seemed like an amazing book art first, but I repeat another readers statement: Fuck this book. I originally gave this 4 stars but changed it to 3. Too many things about this book pissed me off. 1. Privilege. It was too much a part of the story. Exotic places they vacationed and expensive, hip food they ate. Boring. Pretentious. 2. The monastery. That one of them was sexually abusive was believable, but then every single other man in the place was hateful and verbally abusive to Jude? Bullshit. 2. Truckers. Every single trucker who gave Jude a ride was a pedophile? Bullshit. 3. Every counselor in the group home was sexually or otherwise abusive? Bullshit. 4. The cover. I hate the cover. I don't usually care about book covers but I hate this one. Not even sure why.
When Jude finally does commit suicide, it's anti-climactic. After spending most of the book being emotionally invested in his survival, I didn't care anymore. I was emotionally spent at that point.
Yanagihara says she made the abuse, the violence intentionally excessive. “I wanted there to be something too much about the violence in the book, but I also wanted there to be an exaggeration of everything, an exaggeration of love, of empathy, of pity, of horror. I wanted everything turned up a little too high. I wanted it to feel a little bit vulgar in places. Or to be always walking that line between out and out sentimentality and the boundaries of good taste. I wanted the reader to really press up against that as much as possible and if I tipped into it in a couple of places, well, I couldn’t really stop it.” How insulting. Did she think she needed to beat us over the head with the pain because she wasn't sure we'd get it?
And what's with so many of the characters dying in a short period of time at the end? It seemed contrived. Was she afraid the ending would be too boring?
When Jude finally does commit suicide, it's anti-climactic. After spending most of the book being emotionally invested in his survival, I didn't care anymore. I was emotionally spent at that point.
Yanagihara says she made the abuse, the violence intentionally excessive. “I wanted there to be something too much about the violence in the book, but I also wanted there to be an exaggeration of everything, an exaggeration of love, of empathy, of pity, of horror. I wanted everything turned up a little too high. I wanted it to feel a little bit vulgar in places. Or to be always walking that line between out and out sentimentality and the boundaries of good taste. I wanted the reader to really press up against that as much as possible and if I tipped into it in a couple of places, well, I couldn’t really stop it.” How insulting. Did she think she needed to beat us over the head with the pain because she wasn't sure we'd get it?
And what's with so many of the characters dying in a short period of time at the end? It seemed contrived. Was she afraid the ending would be too boring?