A Little Life: The Million-Copy Bestseller Paperback – 10 Mar. 2017

Beautifully written, compulsive reading (I read this book very quickly, at one point I had a straight 10 hour session). It's a really tough read at points, so I can't imagine what it must have taken out of Ms Yanagihara to write. I think this book will stay with me, but I'm not sure I'll ever want to read it again; it was so gutwrenchingly heartbreaking at points that I had to put it down, try not to cry, remember "it's not real, it's not happening to me and my friends" (even though it felt like, feels like, it was exactly that). Whilst I was reading this, I happened to see a review online that said: "It's not overstating it to say that this book has changed my pre-conceived ideas of what friendship is" - or something like that. I couldn't have put it better.

I rarely leave reviews, but this book is perhaps one of the most powerful I have ever read. The story follows four friends throughout their life spans, and is such a deep education in empathy and compassion, that even as a psychotherapist who has heard many things from many people, I found myself utterly bawling at times; through the joys, the hardships and the anguish of what it means to be alive, and to love.

There is little more one can add to the hundreds of reviews here but its a book that will attract so many varied opinions. I think it was too long and could lose 300 pages with a good editor. I am a fairly slow reader and read only 20 or so pages a day which means it took a long time to read and because its incessant intensity and tortuous life experience, it was difficult to keep picking it up every day. I didn’t really want to live his life all the time. There was never any let up or light relief. No women either which made it too one sided, life isnt like that being a single sex experience. Surprising for a female author i thought.I found quite a bit of it hard to believe, how he could he hold down a serious lawyer career in complex high profile trials and be falling apart in his private life? His relationship with Caleb seemed a step too far after his childhood experiences. He was obviously struggling to make relationships and not the best in making the right decisions on who to expose himself to but that just seemed too extreme for me.Needless to say it was a beautiful love story whilst living the most abused life from being abused through to self abuse. A beautiful kind bunch of characters standing by Jude and his lover Willem was a truly lovable guy, you couldn’t fault him. Is that real? But never has self harm been so graphically described in such detail both physically and psychologically. We were in his mind and his blade and his horridly damaged body. One month of reading all that! How did i do it?Yanagihara writes beautifully and fluidly and her research was obviously extensive but having taken a month or more to read it i felt exhausted and depressed having finished it. I loved some of the characters but i don’t think there was enough breadth and depth in them especially with barely a word from a female. Gays aren’t like that either, they usually love women.A remarkable book but if any of her other books are as long or as depressingly hurtful as this one i doubt i,ll read it. Its not that i can't take the hurt, its because i didn’t want to live with it over 700 pages in limited male company. You really have to want to keep reading for that long. My advice, get an editor. Or i have to learn to read quicker or at least find the time to read more often.

I had seen the many video's of people reading this book in airports and was thoroughly influenced to buy it.And I am so pleased I was. It was captivating, enthralling with empathy and intrigue. It consumed my every moment on holiday and I was honestly sad to finished it. A wonderful book!

One of the best books in a long time! A real tear jerker!

A Little Life, a 700-page journey, by Hanya Yanagihara is the second 2015 Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel I have read; the first was The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota. Both of these novels I have read in 10 days, with A Little Life taking 6 – a testament to the quality of the novels.But, how do I begin with this review? Will my review do justice to this novel, and to what Hanya Yanagihara has achieved?First, the author's writing style makes this book, despite its size, very readable. For example: "They bragged of what they would be doing if they hadn't gone into this wretched industry: they'd be a curator (possibly the one job where'd you make even less than you did now), a sommelier (well, make that two jobs), a gallery owner (make it three), a writer (all right, four - clearly none of them were equipped to make money, ever, in any imagining)." Even though I've described this book as "readable", that doesn't mean the book lacks in quality prose; the novel is almost poetic; it rolls off your tongue whilst making your imagination go wild, whether it be through rich, descriptive scenes or honing on particular qualities of a character within the novel. Of course, this also means the book is subtly humorous, with lines beginning like: “There was a bathroom (unspeakable) and a kitchen (slightly less horrifying)..." Some reviewers have said that the length of the novel is too long and they have had to skip pages. For me, I was so engrossed with the novel that this wasn’t that much of an issue (though, I did skip the odd paragraph once in a while)This novel, ultimately, revolves around a man called Jude St. Francis. Don’t be mistaken, his fate has been devastatingly cruel to him. From abandonment, to (extreme) physical and sexual abuse, including (again, extreme) domestic violence, to self-harm, Jude’s life has been one that, when you read it, you will have to put the book down just give yourself a breather. But the skill of Hanya Yanagihara is such that there is never anything crude, explicit or too graphic: the writing speaks for itself.Despite the cruel unfolding and slow revelation of past events, present horrors, and future uncertainties, there were some really touching moments, I thought, in the novel too. Actually, they were jam-packed with touching moments. But, (again) the talent of Hanya Yanagihara is such that these moments didn't feel excessive or repetitive. They just flowed naturally. An example of one of these touching moments is when Jude is sleeping over at Harold's, one of his professors and for whom he's a research assistant for, and whilst in bed at his home, Jude "...pretended that they [Harold and Julia] were his parents, and he was home for the weekend from law school to visit them, and this was his room, and the next day he would get up and do whatever it was that grown children did with their parents." This, of course, to someone who has not read this novel is meaningless. But to someone who has, it is profound. And the simple-ness of this line is deceptive; it doesn’t really convey to you the emotional weight it carries (guess you have to read the novel to understand why I am saying this, right?)However, now that I have finished the novel, I must say, it is over the top (or it might not be? Do read on with the review to understand my confusion). The things Jude has been through, I'm finding it so hard to believe that one person could have been through so much (or is that my relatively sheltered life speaking?). How can someone like Jude have been through the terrible events that have marked his life, and yet carry on surviving? Not only surviving, but being surrounded by loving, devoted people and having a hugely successful career? Heck, by half way through the book, I was surprised every time Jude smiled or laughed! Or is this what this book is saying? That is, the power of human resolve; the effect of love, friendship, and meaningful relationships? And when one person has these things, no matter what they have been though in life, they can, still, smile. Jude's self-harming is also something that baffles me. As someone who hasn't been around people who self-harm (or know anything regarding the psychology of it), I just don't know if the book is over the top with the self-harming, or are there people out there whose lives are like Jude?Ultimately, for me, what this book is, is a sad, but honorable (and at time humorous and heart-warming), tale of friendship, heart-break, sorrow, regret, happiness, meaning, relationships, and life (and so much more!). Never in my life, so far, have I wished for a fictional character (am I crazy?) so much happiness and contentment. Though the book ended in a rather predictable way, it feels as though to me it is the only ending that would of made Jude happy; an ending that he needed, and maybe the reader wanted because you grow to care for Jude as much as Willem, or Harold, Andy, Julia, Richard, JB, and countless more.I will be surprised if someone reads this novel, and doesn’t reflect upon their own life, and, perhaps, even change the way in which they go about treating others. And isn’t this the best testament to how great a novel is? By how much a novel mpacts YOU.