A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This was one of those books that kept popping up on TikTok, and everyone had the same emotional reaction. As someone who doesn’t usually cry over books or movies, I assumed they were being dramatic. Spoiler: they were not and it got me in “The Happy Years.”
I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover (or size) but A Little Life is intense from the jump. Its a little thick with 800+ pages, time consuming coming in at 28 hours on audio, and contains probably every trigger warning in existence. But as long as you can handle it and it gets really uncomfortable, I was actually wishing for more pages, more time, more story because I was so invested in each character.
As a super social person who deeply values friendship, this book was relatable. The friendships feel real, authentic, layered, complicated—and the author writes each character with such depth that you can see them. Like, really see them because of how descriptive the author is.
Unlike other books where I could zone out and still understand what was going on, this one is the complete opposite. Since you meet the characters in their early 20s, and by the end, you’ve walked with them through five decades of life, you would think that you could skip a page or two when they are just having dinner. But that dinner is most likely going to come up again at some point and eventually, the author stops using names altogether as you’ve grown with the characters.
There were multiple points when I paused and thought, How did she even write this? Or Who would even think of this?
After this finishing this one, other books felt…dull for a while because nothing was at the caliber of A Little Life. This one will stay with you long after the final page and if this could legally be made into a movie, it would not compare to the novel.
