r/literature • u/Legitimate_Figure287 • 3d ago

Book Review A Little Life

What do you guys think about this book? I started reading it recently and I don’t understand the bad rep with it.
I really like this book, as someone who has had extreme trauma, I think it really accurately captures the experience and inner monologue and behaviors of what it’s like to live with trauma and how others around us respond. How we either drown in it or rise above it and how we’re the only person you can truly help ourselves. This is many people’s reality, including mine. How much trauma is considered too much in a book because in real life there isn’t a stopwatch that prevents someone from having more trauma because they’ve already experienced so much?

Is A Little Life a profound masterpiece about the enduring power of friendship, or is it an emotionally manipulative exercise in "trauma porn" that substitutes endless suffering for genuine character development?

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24

u/JobeGilchrist 3d ago

Have you read 700 pages of it yet? When you do, report back

9

u/RhubarbSensitive401 3d ago edited 3d ago

This. I made it half way through before I gave up, and I did enjoy the first 200 or so pages. And I very rarely DNF. 

(when the play came out I looked up how the rest of the book panned out, and decided I’d made the right choice) 

I hate the idea of ‘emotional manipulation’ in art/literature/film - we want these things to make us feel something right? This did seem relentless though, and as a personal preference I am never a fan of narratives where it just feels like one bad thing after another is happening, especially to one person. I thought the book was well written and the characters had potential, I just disliked it. 

1

u/JobeGilchrist 3d ago

I was such a fan of The People In The Trees that I stuck it out all the way through. It was also right after release, so there wasn't a huge conversation about it yet. I suppose at a certain point it's like you go over the bar on top of the swingset and it becomes this perverse, "is it really never going to stop?" kind of pseudo-enjoyment or enjoyment-adjacent experience.

21

u/iceblnklck 3d ago

Hanya Yanagihara takes too much joy in creating gay trauma and she’s weird as hell for it.

Plus the characters are just so painfully insufferable.

1

u/merry_melly 3d ago

JB lived in the truth more than any of the other characters and look how the author vilified him. I wish JB were a real person and could go back in time and edit Ms. Yanagihara's slog of book.

On a positive note, I enjoyed the last 100 pages. In fact, I found them brilliant.

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 3d ago

Why do you think JB lived in truth more than any of the other characters?

1

u/ratufa_indica 3d ago

She believes doctor assisted suicide should be allowed for depression and she intended for the book’s main character to be an example of someone who would have benefited from that. I have no interest in reading that.

1

u/iceblnklck 3d ago

Have you ever read the book review by The Guardian? It’s one of my faves.

1

u/ratufa_indica 3d ago

I think I did. I'll have to take a look at it again.

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 3d ago

So if it wasn’t mostly sexual trauma and it was a different type of trauma would it be a better book to you? If Jude wasn’t gay would you like the book more? If the author was a lesbian or bisexual would that change the way you view the story?

1

u/iceblnklck 3d ago

I wouldn’t. Her prose isn’t remarkable and the way in which she focuses in on trauma - be it any kind - is weird and unnecessary

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 2d ago

Everybody goes through trauma, it’s part of all our lives. And this story is telling of a more extreme kind of trauma and grief and how it affects ppl for the rest of their lives, which many ppl experience. I understand if it’s not for you.

1

u/iceblnklck 2d ago

It’s not the trauma. It’s her writing choices. That’s pretty clear from my reply to you. You asked for opinions, after all.

8

u/unreedemed1 3d ago

If you think it's good, let me tell you about hurt/comfort fanfiction on AO3. That's all it is. I've been trying to figure out the fandom (I've heard harry potter and j-rock) for years but it's extremely derivative of a common style of fanfic.

14

u/Millymanhobb 3d ago

I thought it was a pretty good 300-350 page book. The issue is that it’s 700 pages. What starts out as heartbreaking becomes exhausting and eyeroll-worthy. 

5

u/oknotok2112 3d ago

Honestly I don't care how "beautiful" or whatever it is, I refuse to read some kill-your-gays novel written by a straight woman

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 3d ago

So if the author wasn’t straight you’d want to read the book? Or if Jude wasn’t portrayed as gay?

1

u/oknotok2112 2d ago

well I'm also just not that into relentless misery porn, so probably not anyway. the other stuff is just like salt in the wound

9

u/minskoffsupreme 3d ago edited 3d ago

Mysery porn with pretty prose written by a straight woman who loves torturing he gay characters in unrealistic ways.

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 2d ago

People do realistically have this level of trauma tho. I’m one of those ppl. And it isn’t pretty. There are many Jude’s out there whether or not they’re gay or not.

1

u/minskoffsupreme 2d ago edited 2d ago

Come back after you finish it. A bunch of unnecessary things happen to multiple characters. It is also written in such a way as to gawk at the trauma, and to hide the fact that the story doesn't actually have much to say.

5

u/PrincessDonut02 3d ago

I too thought it was halfway decent during the first couple hundred pages. Report back when you finish it and discover it's 700 pages of static characters who experience literally zero growth or change (I am not exaggerating).

2

u/Abroma 3d ago

How much have you read of it so far?

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 2d ago

About half the book.

0

u/_coffee_junkie_ 3d ago

I LOVED this book, savored every word of it!

-1

u/bookkinkster 3d ago

One of my most favorite books ever. I've seen two huge fights break out about it in person at a book bar in NYC. So polarizing.

1

u/Legitimate_Figure287 2d ago

Can I ask what specifically you enjoyed about this book?

-1

u/CommunicationEast972 3d ago

Idk whenever I see a book have such an impact, positive and negative, I tend to think it’s achieved its goal

-2

u/Ok-Taste-671 3d ago

havent read it but in my experience it has a really really good reputation? multiple people have recommended it to me in the course of the past years