Little: A Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year

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I hated this. I cannot recall another that so raised my ire. An über leftist pre-meditated kumba-yah-waaah, plodding so far into the wimper-sphere that it could legitimately be considered an ironic harbinger of the kind of paternalistic elitism, against which middle America arose in vengeance, delivering us the worst leader in U.S. history. So, yes, this book is about faith, but it’s also about being human, because believing in things is just part of our existence. So, wherever you sit on the faith spectrum, I’m here to tell you it’s okay. You don’t have to sign up to all of something to get something out of some of it. You don’t have to like every song on the album. Over the decades, their friendship endures, through spats, early career struggles, J.B.’s drug addiction and, most of all, dealing with the effects of Jude’s unspeakably abusive past on his current life, although Jude is terrified to tell anyone about that abuse. The novel is also refreshing in its depiction of race, gender and sexual orientation. I'll start by saying that I can't recollect the last time I felt so connected to characters in a story. I was so consumed with the four main characters seeing as how it's nearly impossible not to fall in love with them, especially Jude and Willem. ♡ They're so complex, it feels like you're living the story and you're associating with all of them. There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favourite book' - Marcel Proust.

this book should never be recommended lightly.And should be read by those who are in the healthy headspace to do so. I spluttered often while reading A Little Life – it is a book that teeters regularly over the abyss of ridicule. The friends’ successes are the absurd dreams of a teenager; the quality of the writing is decidedly mixed, with many an ugly sentence; it is a humourless novel, even when it tries to be funny. A Little Life is a strong contender for the award for the most depressing book I've ever read. I swear I'm not even exaggerating. With a language disappearing every two weeks and neologisms springing up almost daily, an understanding of the origins and currency of language has never seemed more relevant. In this charming volume, a narrative history written explicitly for a young audience, expert linguist David Crystal proves why the story of language deserves retelling.In summary: this is a book where the main character is applauded for suffering quietly. It establishes a narrative where he can't ask for help-- and then sadistically pushes the story to a tragic ending. Because why? Because art?

In the end, though, it is the very relentlessness that makes this a book unlike any other I’ve read. The novel is brilliantly redeemed by Yanahigara’s insistence on Jude’s right to suffer, her unwillingness to embrace the approved message that we get from Dave Pelzer et al (“Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable,” Pelzer writes in A Child Called It). A Little Life asks serious questions about humanism and euthanasia and psychiatry and any number of the partis pris of modern western life. It’s Entourage directed by Bergman; it’s the great 90s novel a quarter of a century too late; it’s a devastating read that will leave your heart, like the Grinch’s, a few sizes larger.Understandably then--I think--when I found out that Ms. Yanagihara meant to toy with the emotions of everyone who read this, that she set out to write it in a way that would depress, oppress and dishearten unsuspecting readers, I was pissed. Would I go view a film if I knew the screenwriter's purpose was to inflict gratuitous pain and anguish? NO. This is different than emotions like cheer, fear, and sneers at irony. I know a horror movie's purpose is to scare, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Apatow rom-coms are intended to cheer me, and movies like Gladiator and Braveheart to evoke and satiate my inner urge for justice and vengeance. I could think of novels if I had more time. Kate's] wisdom is delivered with humour and compassion...and [makes] you feel that life is always worth living Once she has you, Yanagihara is not going to let you go . . . Yanagihara . . . contains multitudes. She seems able to imagine anything . . . A Little Life . . . is, in its own dark way, a miracle.' - Newsday An acute and deeply insightful book of essays exploring poetic form and the role of instinct and imagination within form—from former poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author Robert Hass. Has so much richness in it - great big passages of beautiful prose, unforgettable characters, and shrewd insights into art and ambition and friendship and forgiveness.' - Entertainment Weekly

The wisdom that shines through this unshowy and compassionate book suggests our public life is much enriched by her presence’ Also see: review from The London Review of Books [ Review]: " He wishes he too could forget, that he too could choose never to consider Caleb again. Always, he wonders why and how he has let four months – four months increasingly distant from him – so affect him, so alter his life. But then, he might as well ask – as he often does – why he has let the first 15 years of his life so dictate the past 28." Everyone keeps saying “books don’t need to have a happy ending” and that’s why people dislike this book. But it’s not the reason? Atleast not for me. This book could have the saddest ending for all I care but what matters to me is how it got there. And reading through a friendship that we didn’t even get to watch grow, was not it. I hate the term "triggers", but it's appropriate here. I have a few triggers of my own and they were part of this book, but I felt the writing here just brought me into those places that I don't like to go and left me, not upset or feeling traumatized, but more appreciative of my own ability to survive and thrive. I wanted to reach into the book and take Jude's hand and tell him we'd get through it together. Nothing in life is positive, there is only human suffering, true connection is impossible, predators will always find and ruin truly good people, everything is evil, the people who love you are not enough to save you, and your happiness will turn to ashes in your mouth. The End.Yanagihara expertly weaves the story of Jude’s abusive past into his present-day narrative. And in the character of Brother Luke (especially), she understands how abusers manipulate. A Little Life is Jude's story and it's his sorrow that colours this devastating, exhausting, strangely exhilarating novel. It's not in any way consoling but it is vitally compelling.' - Eithne Farry, Daily Express

Emerging from horror, persistent and enduring, is a touching, eternal, unconventional love story.' - Maria Crawford, Financial Times All of our upcoming public events and our St Pancras building tours are going ahead. Read our latest blog post about planned events for more information. Jude is a truly broken person; he's been broken by a childhood that is both a series of horrors that are difficult to read about and a testament to what a human being can endure. Jude doesn't come out of his childhood whole and I feel a little broken by having read about his life. I also feel that strange happiness that comes from being emotionally purged in the way that only great books can accomplish. This is one of those books that brings a whole lot of genius to the table but very little real enjoyment. It's long, slow in parts, and very VERY depressing. But if you are not put off by the length and the dark subject matter, I would say it's the kind of book that needs to be read. It's the kind of book people will talk about and it's the kind of book that has you saying "this is the most ________ book/relationship/characterization I have ever read".One of the pleasures of fiction is how suddenly a brilliant writer can alter the literary landscape . . . Ms. Yanagihara's immense new book . . . announces her, as decisively as a second work can, as a major American novelist. Here is an epic study of trauma and friendship written with such intelligence and depth of perception that it will be one of the benchmarks against which all other novels that broach those subjects (and they are legion) will be measured.' - Wall Street Journal The maddening waste is that Yanagihara’s writing is elegant and evocative, and she’s able — at times — to capture with precision and delicacy the true, messy emotions between her characters. And the kind of story that she’s (I think) trying to tell is a kind of story I want to see more of. I want a story that doesn’t pretend there’s a straight path out of trauma into healing that you travel once and then you reach the end and you and your trauma have no further business to transact. I want a story that places serious value on relationships other than romantic ones. I want a story about loving someone who cannot always see his way clear to continuing to live in this world. It may sound presumptuous to say in January that I've read the best book I've read all year, but reading is a lot like love. Sometimes you just know. A LITTLE LIFE is a title with 3 meanings. First, it refers to its protagonist, Jude, a man who cannot ever accept that his life is worthwhile. Second, it refers to the act of reading it, spending time in this book is really like living a version of life.