Hanya Yanagihara

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015. Shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women's Fiction 2016. Finalist for the National Book Awards 2015. The million copy bestseller, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance. When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome – but that will define his life forever.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015

A Little Life

Aina

And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.

"Willem," I ask you, "do you feel like I do? Do you think he was happy with me?" Because he deserved happiness. We aren't guaranteed it, none of us are, but he deserved it. But you only smile, not at me but just past me, and you never have an answer.

Finally he lifts his head and sees Harold staring at him, sees that Harold is actually crying, silently, looking and looking at him. "Harold," he says, although Andy is still talking, "release me. Release me from my promise to you. Don't make me do this anymore. Don't make me go on."

Harold sighs. "Jude," he says, "there's not an expiration date on needing help, or needing people. You don't get to a certain age and it stops."

What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.

Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It’s so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.

annemie

[...] things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully. 

Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?

As you got older, you realized that really, there were very few people you truly wanted to be around for more than a few days at a time, and yet here you were with someone you wanted to be around for years, even when he was at his most opaque and confusing.

The person he thought he knew had turned out to be, in some ways, not the person before him, and it had taken him time to figure out how many facets he had yet to see: it was as if the shape he had all along thought was a pentagram was in reality a dodecahedron, many sided and many fractaled and much more complicated to measure. Despite this, he had never considered leaving: he stayed, unquestioningly, out of love, out of loyalty, out of curiosity, But it hadn't been easy. In truth, it had been at times aggressively difficult, and in some ways remained so. When he had promised himself that he wouldn't try to repair Jude, he had forgotten that to solve someone is to want to repair them: to diagnose a problem and then not try to fix that problem seemed not only neglectful but immoral.

If you love home — and even if you don't — there is nothing quite as cozy, as comfortable, as delightful, as that first week back. That week, even the things that would irritate you — the alarm waahing from some car at three in the morning; the pigeons who come to clutter and cluck on the windowsill behind your bed when you’re trying to sleep in — seem instead reminders of your own permanence, of how life, your life, will always graciously allow you to step back inside of it, no matter how far you have gone away from it or how long you have left it.

"That's the thing, though, Jude," Andy says. "It is his business. That's what being in a goddamned relationship is — don't you understand that yet? Don't you get that you just can't do what you want? Don't you get that when you hurt yourself, you're hurting him as well?"

"No," he says, shaking his head, gripping the side of the examining table with his right hand to try to remain upright. "No. I do this to myself so I won't hurt him. I'm doing it to spare him."

"No," Andy says. "If you ruin this, Jude — if you keep lying to someone who loves you, who really loves you, who has only ever wanted to see you exactly as you are — then you will only have yourself to blame. It will be your fault. And it’ll be your fault not because of who you are or what's been done to you or the diseases you have or what you think you look like, but because of how you behave, because you won't trust Willem enough to talk to him honestly, to extend to him the same sort of generosity and faith that he has always, always extended to you. I know you think you're sparing him, but you're not. You're selfish. You're selfish and you're stubborn and you're proud and you're going to ruin the best thing that has happened to you. Don't you understand that?"

He was worried because to be alive was to worry. Life was scary; it was unknowable. Even Malcolm’s money wouldn’t immunize him completely. Life would happen to him, and he would have to try to answer it, just like the rest if them.

He knew what the houses meant to Malcolm: they were an assertion of control, a reminder that for all the uncertainties of his life, there was one thing that he could manipulate perfectly, that he would always express what he was unable to in words.

Somewhere, surrendering to what seemed to be your fate had changed from being dignified to being a sign of your own cowardice. There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, and that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.

He was releasing them — he loved them the most of all, and this was what you did for people you loved: you gave then their freedom.

"I know you are, JB," he said, and he felt a sort of sadness he'd never felt before. Other people had been cruel to him, had made him feel awful, but they hadn't been people he loved, they hadn't been people he had always hoped saw him as someone whole and undamaged. JB had been the first.

And if we are being philosophical — which we today are — we can say that life itself is the axiom of the empty set. It begins in zero and ends in zero. We know that both states exist, but we will not be conscious of either experience: they are states that are necessary parts of life, even as they cannot be experienced as life. We assume the concept of nothingness, but we cannot prove it. But it must exist.

It was impossible to explain to the healthy the logic of the sick, and he didn't have the energy to try.

Are you happy? he once asked Jude (they must have been drunk).

I don’t think happiness is for me, Jude had said at last, as if Willem had been offering him a dish he didn't want to eat. But it’s for you, Willem.

"You won't understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are — not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving — and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad — or good — it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well."

There had been periods in his twenties when he would look at his friends and feel such a pure, deep contentment that he would wish the world around them would simply cease, that none of them would have to move from that moment, when everything was in equilibrium and his affection for them was perfect. But, of course, that was never to be: a beat later, and everything shifted, and the moment quietly vanished.

Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities. Right and wrong, however, are for — well, not unhappy people, maybe, but scarred people; scared people.

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.

Mit unendlichem Leid, können keine Gefühle erzwungen werden. 

Martin Meyer

The magnum opus of sadness. This book broke me. It’s hauntingly beautiful yet concomitantly devastating. I’ve never thought a book would genuinely shatter my heart to pieces but here I am, still crying as we speak. I think I’ll never be the same anymore.

if you value your mental health, avoid this book. if you’re like me and you don’t, please read it because it has broken me as a human (in a good way?). also genuinely all the trigger warnings needed

Storm

for a sappy soul, i did not cry but my heart wrenched a tad bit. this was a begrudgingly slow plot but i loved every part of it. seth was right, if we are lucky we find maybe 3 or 4 life qualities in someone and we get to call them our partner. and that struck a chord deep within me. i was telling a friend that we get to choose who loves us & if we’re worthy of it and he told me why do we get to decide that? and he was right, there is enough love to go around

Hard book to read. But was so well thought out. Was honestly not expecting Jude to die. I thought the heartbreak would be over after Willem and malcholms deaths but nope. Willem and Jude are hopefully together. Harold at the end broke me. That man deserves all the happiness in the world 

Katie Roberts

I will have to say it's well-written but I got tired of it near the end. It can get repetitive, and it's very, very, long. 

I also didn't cry, but that's more on me than on the book.

Otherwise, I thought it painted a nice picture of male companionship. The title drop was was also masterfully executed, and quite unforgettable. Keep your eyes peeled for it, that's all I ask of you.

Throckmorton

I will have to say it's well-written but I got tired of it near the end. It can get repetitive, and it's very, very, long. 

I also didn't cry, but that's more on me than on the book.

Otherwise, I thought it painted a nice picture of male companionship. The title drop was was also masterfully executed, and quite unforgettable. Keep your eyes peeled for it, that's all I ask of you.

I went in thinking “I never cry at books. Everyone’s being dramatic.”

Dearest gentle reader - they are not being dramatic. 

I am missing characters as if they existed. Just a beautiful story of friendship, pain, healing, and loss. Please, please pick it up. 

Liv N.

Haunting. Beautiful. Raw.

I went in thinking “I never cry at books. Everyone’s being dramatic.”

Dearest gentle reader - they are not being dramatic. 

I am missing characters as if they existed. Just a beautiful story of friendship, pain, healing, and loss. Please, please pick it up. 

watched the stage play and i do not need to emotionally go through that again goodbye

felicity hu

The best and worst book there ever was or will be. Took me months to finish it. It is a literary equivalent of someone stabbing you with a knife and twisting it and twisting it. 

Jovana Gjekanovikj 

The best and worst book there ever was or will be. Took me months to finish it. It is a literary equivalent of someone stabbing you with a knife and twisting it and twisting it. 

Best of luck to anyone who reads it.

Degersiz Bir Hayat

no one can save a person who thinks  he/she doesn't deserve to be saved 

burcu yigit

I bought this book in June and had started reading it immediately. I love Hanya’s style of writing; easy to follow yet so much depth and details… but this wasn’t an easy read at all. 

I had already known that this book is going to be a slow, sad, and depressing read. But, I did not imagine it to break my heart into a gazillion pieces. I remember a friend mentioning that I must be so happy and that my life must be so perfect to want to torture my self reading this book. I also remember a friend warning me to not read at least the last 100 pages in public…

I read this book on the daily when commuting and over the weekends. I think emotions started to flood in when I was closer to a third of the book. That’s when I realised I really need to stop reading it in public because there were times on the train when I really had to stop my tears from falling. And so, I continued reading it at home in my own time…

I went through so many emotions reading this book - more sadness than happiness but strangely, some comfort too. There are some moments in this book that made me reflect and think deeply about the relationships in my life - with my partner, my family, and my friends. I also thought deeply about adulthood and how easy it is for us to get consumed by the idea of success and how fast we want to have it. I was comforted with the fact that when these characters were in their late twenties, they were just starting out… with careers, with friendships, with relationships - with life in general.

I finished reading this book just half an hour ago. I had prepared myself for the worst but never have I imagined that I would literally hang on to every single written word and bawled my eyes out to this book - I was inconsolable (I still am). I felt the comfort, the pain, the peace, the anger, the frustration - every single emotions known to me. I never think myself of someone that’s imaginative but this book has allowed me to depict and see clearly every single scene in every single page and chapter. It was as if I was running a movie in my head. 

I know that this is the type of book that I’ll never read again - not that i don’t want to but I don’t think that I can ever again. I’m truly and genuinely heartbroken by this piece. How can something so painful be so beautiful? How can something so violent be so peaceful? How can something so chaotic be so comforting? 

Anyways, highly recommend if you want to torture yourself and seep into the darkness of depression. Heavy read but easy to follow. Not suitable to be read in public. 

Ariariari

I bought this book in June and had started reading it immediately. I love Hanya’s style of writing; easy to follow yet so much depth and details… but this wasn’t an easy read at all. 

I had already known that this book is going to be a slow, sad, and depressing read. But, I did not imagine it to break my heart into a gazillion pieces. I remember a friend mentioning that I must be so happy and that my life must be so perfect to want to torture my self reading this book. I also remember a friend warning me to not read at least the last 100 pages in public…

I read this book on the daily when commuting and over the weekends. I think emotions started to flood in when I was closer to a third of the book. That’s when I realised I really need to stop reading it in public because there were times on the train when I really had to stop my tears from falling. And so, I continued reading it at home in my own time…

I went through so many emotions reading this book - more sadness than happiness but strangely, some comfort too. There are some moments in this book that made me reflect and think deeply about the relationships in my life - with my partner, my family, and my friends. I also thought deeply about adulthood and how easy it is for us to get consumed by the idea of success and how fast we want to have it. I was comforted with the fact that when these characters were in their late twenties, they were just starting out… with careers, with friendships, with relationships - with life in general.

I finished reading this book just half an hour ago. I had prepared myself for the worst but never have I imagined that I would literally hang on to every single written word and bawled my eyes out to this book - I was inconsolable (I still am). I felt the comfort, the pain, the peace, the anger, the frustration - every single emotions known to me. I never think myself of someone that’s imaginative but this book has allowed me to depict and see clearly every single scene in every single page and chapter. It was as if I was running a movie in my head. 

I know that this is the type of book that I’ll never read again - not that i don’t want to but I don’t think that I can ever again. I’m truly and genuinely heartbroken by this piece. How can something so painful be so beautiful? How can something so violent be so peaceful? How can something so chaotic be so comforting? 

Anyways, highly recommend if you want to torture yourself and seep into the darkness of depression. Heavy read but easy to follow. Not suitable to be read in public. 

Tan poca vida

elinabel hidalgo 

My therapist is going to be thrilled with the amount of material this book has provided for our sessions.

Indi

Oh god what to say about this masterpiece, I loved every single one of them, I felt like I was living life, enjoying the moments, laughing with them, crying for something with them. I was with all of them, I was one of the group. Truly something astonishing in my opinion 

Aris 

so that was a long painful book... i feel like the tears have left permanent scars on my face

Eylül Şimşek

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015 "Astonishing and unsettling ... A masterwork" San Francisco Chronicle "A book that demands to be read." Wall Street Journal The million copy bestseller, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance. When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever. ACCLAIM FOR A LITTLE LIFE Shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women's Fiction 2016 Winner of The Kirkus Prize 2015 Finalist for the National Book Awards 2015 "Transporting . . . A Little Life is not to be missed." Evening Standard "The first must-read novel of the year" Kirkus "A singularly profound and moving work . . . It's not often that you read a book of this length and find yourself thinking "I wish it was longer" but Yanagihara takes you so deeply into the lives and minds of these characters that you struggle to leave them behind." The Times "Makes for near-hypnotically compelling reading, a vivid, hyperreal portrait of human existence that demands intense emotional investment . . . An astonishing achievement: a novel of grand drama and sentiment, but it's a canvas Yanagihara has painted with delicate, subtle brushstrokes." Independent "Utterly compelling . . . quite an extraordinary novel. It is impossible to put down . . . And it is almost impossible to forget." Daily Express

Not sure if words can describe what reading this felt like. I had to put down the book, pause and breathe, at several times. From fear, anticipation, happiness and heartbreak. You might love this book or hate it. I loved its depictions of grief, but more importantly, of love with friendship at its core. It’s hopeful and devastating. It’s like having a raw exposed nerve, feeling the characters so viscerally. I liked that the story followed the characters through decades and the narrative references itself in a way that is rewarding to the reader and realistic/true-to-life. 

(Please check the content warnings before reading!) 

Xiang

Not sure if words can describe what reading this felt like. I had to put down the book, pause and breathe, at several times. From fear, anticipation, happiness and heartbreak. You might love this book or hate it. I loved its depictions of grief, but more importantly, of love with friendship at its core. It’s hopeful and devastating. It’s like having a raw exposed nerve, feeling the characters so viscerally. I liked that the story followed the characters through decades and the narrative references itself in a way that is rewarding to the reader and realistic/true-to-life. 

(Please check the content warnings before reading!) 

emotionally- i would only recommend this to ppl i hate 

Keila Rico 

literarily- a masterpiece 

emotionally- i would only recommend this to ppl i hate 

Denise 

it was hard reading the book, yet at other times i couldnt stop. i enjoyed that the book solely focuses on the group’s friendships without the worldly affairs seeping in, and i enjoyed their friendship through the years. my heart aches for jude and what he went through; at the same time i am horrified; traumatised, and i dont even dare to envision what he went through, and the strength of character to keep going. 

on hindsight, i do wish to have more insight into other characters’ plausible reasons to love him. or is there a reason needed to love someone? maybe this book is trying to tell me—you just do. no questions asked.

there are books you pick up and enjoy, or dislike, but this book—this book will be unforgettable.

Kirsten Kim

never felt physical pain in my heart from a book

In this reread l, I learn there is an ugly arrogance in deciding who gets to love me and if I deserve it. Ofc I cried 

Mira <3

Ghofran Mustafa 

I don't even have the words to say how reading this made me feel..

Anna 

2,5*
....
já přesně nevím, co si o té knize mám myslet. chápu, proč se lidem líbí, ty postavy jsou strašně dobře napsané (edit: teď přemýšlím nad tím, jestli to je opravdu tak, když se za 30 let, co jsme je sledovali, vlastně vůbec nezměnili. to mě na tom taky strašně štvalo. jb se pořád choval jako dítě, Jude jako chudák, kterej se utápí ve smutku a přitom má pomoc na dosah ruky celých 800 stran,...), storytelling je vynikající, člověk to čte rychle, i když to má tolik stran a v podstatě se tam nic tak zajímavého neděje.
ale bohužel mi přijde, že ironicky ty momenty, na který jsme v tý knize všichni čekali, tomu to kouzlo ubírají. ta traumata, o kterých se tam mluví, mi nesedla. což je strašně zvláštní vůbec o traumatech říct. přijde mi, že autorka naschvál napsala to nejhorší, co se může stát, včetně např. vymyšlené nemoci, jen aby mohla popsat její extrémně bolestivý průběh. postavám dala temnou minulost, tak moc temnou, že se ptám, zda tohle vůbec někdo mohl prožít. myslím, že méně je někdy více. v jedné knize toho prostě bylo až moc a z děje mně to vytrhávalo, spíš než aby mě to tam vtáhlo.
vadila mi i třeba jména postav, u kterých jsem se vždycky musela smát (karma, dr. constructor, citizen). a ten konec. já nevím, jestli to bylo nutný. jestli to nebylo prostě trauma porno a jestli se autorka nebála toho, že kdyby to dopadlo jinak, lidi by z toho nebyli tak v háji. nedokážu na to teď mít nějaký sjednocený názor.
ale to je jedno z největších plus u té knihy. že vlastně nevím, co si myslet. že musím přemýšlet, že nikdy asi nenajdu dobrou nebo špatnou odpověď.
.
proto hodnotím 3,5 a počítám s tím, že za pár let si to přečtu znovu. a třeba se můj pohled na mnoho věcí změní, a já tam pochopím mnohem víc věcí, které mi teď přijdou hloupé. a třeba ne.
jsem ráda, že jsem si knihu přečetla, nerozumím ale úplně tomu, že nikdo nemá podobné pocity, jako já. nebo aspoň ne tolik lidí.
.
edit 2: po zhlédnutí několika video esejí na tuto knihu jsem přesvědčena o tom, že autorka má nějakej fetiš popisovat queer postavy v utrpení. má to tak ve všech svých knihách. navíc v rozhovorech otevřeně říkala, že nevěří v terapii a že občas je lepší, když se člověk vzdá. tím u mě kniha klesla ještě víc. jude could've been saved. zabránila mu v tom však sama autorka, protože už od první strany věděla, jak chce, aby skončil. a nenechala mu prostor pro to, se vyléčit. a ty věci, co se mu staly, jsou fakt extrémně přetažený za vlasy. tam, kde jsem měla plakat, jsem se smála.
knize dávám 2,5 za snahu a za to, že se to četlo rychle, i když se tam skoro nic nedělo.

Kath

It took me almost 3 weeks (March 21–April 7, 2024) to finish this book. The author did an excellent job when it comes to making her readers visualize what's happening, which is why it becomes a painful read—really devastating. This book makes me feel so frustrated with the characters, especially Jude, during the time when Willem wanted him to be more vocal and honest about his thoughts and feelings. But then I will always go back to Jude's reasons for being so reserved. 
The story is about 4 men who became friends since they were in college and one of them—Jude—was SA since he was 8—by the brothers (and a priest) from the monastery—and was used many times by Brother Luke (and many other guys).
This novel made me cry halfway through the story and on the last few pages of the book. I would give this novel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I'd give it a five if the author spared at least either Willem or Jude from death 🥲. Overall, I loved the book, and I became so attached to the characters—Jude, Malcholm, JB, and Willem—that I'd want to give them a hug.

A Little Life Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015

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