A Little Life Audio CD – Unabridged, 26 Jan. 2016

Not sure why I am bothering to offer my take on this book, when the way Amazon now organise reviews conspires to hide low stars, but here goes. Little Life is an overwrought tale, heavy on sexual sadism, concerning the gilded lives of priveleged, beautiful people. The narrative rocks between the good heartedness of its characters in the present and revelations of torture against its main protagonist in the past. Skip every chapter concerning Jude, and a much better, and slimmer, novel emerges.

Every year I look at the Booker Prize shortlist and buy a couple of books from it, and frequently I read the winning book as well. A Little Life was on the shortlist in 2015 and has been sitting on my shelf for two years, until my break in August when I decided to actually read it, and it was well worth the wait. This is one of those books that will surely go down as a modern classic, it is so brilliant. The plot follows four friends who meet at college through life's up and downs and personal tragedies; JB an artists, Malcolm an architect, Willem an actor and Jude a lawyer.  Jude is the glue to this group, and is the main focus of the narrative. There are a few chapters narrated in the first person by Willem and Harold, who is Jude's law professor, mentor and the nearest thing to a father her has.The writing of this book is sublime in its language and Hanya Yanagihara is able to write plot lines, that in some parts are harrowing, in a beautiful and lyrical  way.  I actually found her prose hypnotic, I was drawn into this book and couldn't tear my eyes away from the page.  There are lots of difficult issues discussed in this book, rape, abuse, suicide, drug abuse, and many more but still I was entranced by this book.  Hanaya Yanagihara shows a great understanding, intelligence and empathy towards these subjects.  Her characterisation is again wonderful, with all her characters so true to life that at times I felt like I was reading a biography/autobiography rather than a piece of fiction. In a way A Little Life is a dark Fairytale with good, evil and romance at its centre.Jude is the main character in A Little Life, and all the other character's stories are all linked to his.  In all my years of reading I don't think I have ever come across a character as damaged psychologically and physically as Jude.  When we first meet him in the book we know he has physical problems and throughout the book his past is gradually revealed to the reader.  Jude has experienced the best and worst of humanity through his life, and seen love in many guises from destructive love to the love of friendship that is all encompassing.  Even though his story is hard to read in places, I found him a compelling character who I was really down to and wanted him to find happiness.  Willem is the person whom he is closest to, a friendship that is unconditional and intense in places; it is Willem that is there for Jude at some of his lowest moments.  Malcolm is different in that he comes from a wealthy family, very different from Jude who has no family and Willem whose parents are dead.  His relationship with JB can be tense around the subject of race; Malcolm has a white mother and black father where as JB's parents are both black.  JB is the typical troubled artist, very talented but also open to addiction.  Through his story there is the time old discussion of what is art, figurative painting versus the modern art of the instillation, photography and performance art.  I was really drawn into this as it something I studied with my degree and always find it a fascinating subject.To say A Little Life is a masterpiece, a Magnus opus, feels like an understatement.  I have read the winner of the Booker Prize from 2015, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and have to say I think A Little Life is so much better.  There are very few novels, except from the classics, that I keep to read again but this book will be added to that shelf to join other books that I found through the Booker Prize; Possession by A.S Byatt, Amsterdam by Ian MacEwan and The Goldfinch and The Secret History by Donna Tartt being on that shelf. This is a mesmerising, intelligent, all encompassing read and one that will stay with me forever.  This is a monumental novel in my opinion and one I will always recommend as well as those mentioned above.  A Little Life is fiction at its absolute best; the perfect novel.

Yanagihara writes beautifully but doesn't know when to stop.Seven hundred pages about rich New York men and their friendship.Centered round a ruthless lawyer who was brutally abused by a number of men when he was a child.Out of shame he periodically cuts himself.His friends adore him,though it's hard to understand what he gives them.Women are hardly mentioned.

I really can see so little point to this novel, - in fact I believe it may do more harm than good - it makes me more and more angry the more I think about it. There is no equivocation that horrifying abuse happens, often, everywhere and I believe in both exposing that and developing a collective understanding of its causes and impacts. But this novel doesn’t achieve anything so basic or sophisticated. The drawing of the main character, to whom all this happens, as well as his friends’ lives and responses to him, is so ridiculously simplistic and idealistic - without being in the least bit inspirational - that it reduces the graphic descriptions of trauma, uncomfortably acceptable if appropriately managed, to nothing more than parasitic voyeurism.

I found this to be the most profound book I have read in years. It is hard to understand how an author can know so much about life, can be this insightful. I wept and I feel spent but I am so deeply grateful to have come across this book.

This is a 5 star review, not because I loved it, but because at times I disliked it so much I couldn't carry on reading. This is the strength of A Little Life, not its weakness. This will only make sense once you have read the last word of the last chapter. The length of this book, at more than 700 pages, in itself makes you palpably feel the seemingly never ending pain and abuse suffered by the book's main character.This isn't just a story of the worst things one human can do to another, it is a love story; love between friends, lovers and family.Read this book, persevere, take some breaks from it, but whatever you do, don't take it to read on the beach on holiday.

Hanya Yanagihara takes the reader deep into the lives of four main characters, and then deeper still into the lives of two of them. The book centres around Jude, whose history is as first mysterious and then something you come to dread learning more about. Yanagihara is brilliant at telling you enough, at the right times, and then moving somewhere else. Her deft movement between the different moods of the book, and phases of the characters' lives, gives this book incredible pace for its length. I found it difficult to put down, from the first chapter to the last.It is a sad story - parts of it will make you cry. Some of it you see coming but that doesn't make it any less powerful. Other parts come as blows out of the blue and leave you breathless. Read this book concurrently with a friend if you can - you'll want to talk about it!But it's also a story about the importance of relationship. There are so many rich, rewarding relationships in this book, beautifully captured and intertwined. The way she has written about how relationships survive is eloquent and empathic, never simplistic.I didn't want this book to end and it's rare to say a book with 720 pages could have been longer.One thing: why is this tagged as "#1 in erotic bisexual fiction"? This book really doesn't belong under that heading. There are graphic descriptions of child sex abuse and rape, which is something you might like to know before you decide to read it.