Content Warning: A Little Life contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, sexual assault, self-harm, suicide, domestic violence, and trauma. Please take care while reading if these topics may be difficult for you.
Most people read books for fun, and for an escape from the troubles of reality, and then there are books that make you question why you picked them up in the first place. Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life falls firmly into the third category. This book is over 700 pages of pure pain and raw emotion. The book follows four friends throughout their adult lives and their successes, losses, and complicated relationships. But at the center of the story is Jude St. Francis, whose traumatic past slowly becomes one of the most emotionally difficult parts of the novel to witness. Before starting A Little Life, I knew what I was getting myself into, the book was going to be devastating and extremely difficult to read. What I didn’t know was that this book would have a lasting impact on me. I think about Jude St. Francis at least once a day. The act of reading A Little Life transformed into something more than just getting through the novel; it became an act of reflection about how much emotional suffering I would have to endure for a story.
When Fiction starts to feel real
We know that when we read a fictional book, the characters do not exist. What you don’t expect is how attached to the characters you get, and this is especially true with Jude. I feel like I know everything about Jude and that he’s my friend. That’s one of the best parts about the book. Yanagihara makes sure to go into immense, almost unnecessary, detail about each of the characters’ lives. The beginning of the book is very mundane, it makes you almost want to stop reading, but that’s the beauty of this book. You get to know the characters each individual histories and personalities so deeply. Farther into the book, you don’t get told whose point of view you’re reading from, but you know who because you are already so familiar with their character.
Jude’s character is special compared to the other characters because he’s the center of the story. He’s introduced as a successful lawyer who’s very private about his past. As the book progresses, the readers get to know more of his life in little chunks, mostly through flashbacks. His childhood was marked by abuse and trauma, and the impact of his past still determines how he views himself and those around him. The reason why this book is hard to read is because Jude fails to recover from his trauma, which influences everything from his relationships to his physical well-being, and his belief that he is worthy of love. As a reader, it’s frustrating to watch a character you care for keep hurting himself and not take any help. You feel like getting into the story and telling Jude that he is loved and deserves better than this. And it’s at that moment that the distinction between reading about the character and actually feeling their story becomes blurred.
The people that love you can’t always save you
One of the most important parts of A Little Life is Jude’s relationships with Willem, JB, Malcolm, Andy, and Harold. Each one of them has a very different relationship with Jude, but they all have one thing in common: they all love Jude. These relationships prove just how essential human connection can be, but it also shows that love doesn’t automatically heal trauma. Jude’s friendship with Willem, JB, and Malcolm is what the book is centered on. His friends know practically nothing about his life because he doesn’t let them in. He doesn’t want them to see him as he sees himself: worthless. Andy is one of the only people in the book that knows about Jude’s trauma, only because he’s his doctor. He doesn’t know the stories about the wounds, but he knows the physical trauma Jude has gone through, not the mental. Harold was one of Jude’s law school professors, who eventually adopted Jude. Harold lost his son at a young age and viewed Jude as a son. Jude never opened up to Harold about anything, but Harold was always there for Jude no matter what.
Even though Jude had people that were there for him and loved him, he continued to struggle with self-harm. This was one of the most difficult parts of the book for me to grasp. I wanted to scream through the pages to get into Jude’s head and tell him, “You have people that love you!” The thought that having a good support system can help someone through difficult times, which can absolutely be true, gets complicated in A Little Life. This doesn’t make their love meaningless, this book shows the opposite. Jude’s support system becomes something finally stable in his life, and their presence matters, even if it can’t change the way Jude feels about himself and what he’s experienced.
Why do we keep reading?
This is one of the questions I kept thinking about while reading this book: Why can’t I put it down no matter how difficult it is to read? There were definitely moments that I wanted to put the book down and not continue because I knew something bad was about to happen and I didn’t know if I could handle it. But I kept reading. I think part of it was attachment. I became so attached to that book, not just from the commitment of how big it is, but also the characters. I felt as though I’d gotten to know each and every one of them. I started to care for them and their lives, and I wanted to see where they would end up.
I also had some hope. I was hoping that something good would finally happen to Jude, that he would change the way he feels about himself and could allow himself to open up to people. When something is so dark and depressing, you really can only have hope that there will be some light at the end of the tunnel. I think that’s why I enjoyed this book so much and why it’s so powerful: We don’t continue because it’s easy, we continue because we care about what happens. There’s been so many books I have not finished because I simply didn’t care about the storyline or the characters, but A Little Life was not one of them.
Is there a point when a book becomes too much?
A Little Life is not a universally loved book, and I understand why. One of the biggest criticisms is that there’s too much pain and suffering in this book and that it relies on excessive and unnecessary trauma. I think those criticisms are definitely worth considering, because I too wondered why there was so much trauma and why the book needed to be so painful. This book asks a lot, emotionally, from its readers because we don’t just read one traumatic scene and move on, we continuously get brought back to Jude’s trauma, including sexual abuse, violence, self-harm, and suicide. For some people, this book is unnecessarily cruel, and for others, that’s what makes it so memorable.
I don’t think there is a correct answer in this debate. Everyone chooses to read different books for different reasons, and everyone’s tolerance for certain subject matters is different. I do think A Little Life forces you to question what you can personally handle while reading a book, especially of this subject matter. Are we supposed to feel comfortable while reading? Are books supposed to entertain us? Are we supposed to learn a lesson? Or can they make us uncomfortable enough to think about pain, trauma, friendship, and human connection in a different way?
The emotional hangover
One of the biggest signs that a book has had a lasting effect on me is when I can’t stop thinking about it after I’ve finished reading it, and that is especially true with A Little Life. There’s a difference between finishing a book and actually being finished with it. Sometimes a story stays in your head, and you think about certain characters when doing something related or even completely unrelated to them. I often contemplate going to law school, and when I do, I always think about Jude. When I think about Boston and Harvard, I think about Jude and Harold’s meetings and dinners. There are so many instances when I think about this book. Even when I look at my Kindle, which I’ve read a multitude of books on, my mind constantly goes back to A Little Life when I see it.
The feeling of having spent so much time inside of these character’s lives is what makes me think about it the most. Their friendships, arguments, breakups, successes, failures, and losses stick with you. When the book ended, it felt like a weird separation that I’ve never felt with any other book, almost like I’m saying goodbye to the characters I’ve spent months getting to know.
So, did i pass the test?
Calling A Little Life an “emotional test” doesn’t mean that there’s a correct way to read it or that finishing it makes someone a stronger reader. For me, the test was never about whether I could make it through all 700-plus pages without crying, it was about whether I was willing to sit with emotions that were hard, often uncomfortable, and difficult to understand. This book made me think about how to process other people’s pain, what friendship means, and how complicated recovery from trauma can be. Reading this book was not about just finishing it, it was about exploring empathy, discomfort, and emotional strength. If you choose to read this book, I highly encourage you to look at the content warnings first and decide if this is a book you’re comfortable taking on. A Little Life was one of the best books I’ve ever read, but I don’t necessarily encourage everyone to read it.