I don't often give up on a book but I'm about to with this one. As njon38 pointed out, the main character who, admittedly was terribly damaged in his young life, and now receives such unconditional love from friends, brings very little to the table himself. He does not take responsibility for his own well being and he expects his friends to turn a blind eye and allow it to continue. In fact, true friends would take action on his behalf rather than allow him to continue to self mutilate and suffer abuse. It is an intolerable contrivance on the part of the author to create such continued suffering in this character in order to sustain the reader's empathy or level of horror and keep them reading. That said, there are passages of genuine insight into the nature of youthful friendships and the way they change over the years as people pursue their careers and become disparate characters.

This is not a book for the faint-hearted! For a start, it is 720 pages long and the story is, a lot of the time, quite harrowing. On the surface, the story follows the lives of four men, from the beginnings of their friendship in their early 20s through to their late 50s. It documents all their triumphs and tragedies and the fluctuations in their relationships. But the real focus is on one member of the group, Jude. Despite being talented, successful and popular his mental and physical anguish is profound. Gradually, through the course of the book, we learn the reasons for his intractable pain and despair. Although fiction, this book made me acutely aware of how profoundly damaging childhood abuse can be.

recommended by Michelle 7-19-18

I finished A Little Life about a week ago, and have been unable to put my thoughts into words. I'm still not sure what I want to say about it, exactly. It is the most devastating, heart breaking, upsetting and disturbing novel I have ever read. I was so distraught when I finished the book that I cried myself to sleep ... I cried so much that my eyes were still swollen a full 48 hours afterwards. I have read others refer to the book as 'Tragedy Porn', and I'm not sure I can disagree. It feels like the author set out to write THE MOST DEPRESSING BOOK OF ALL TIME ... and she succeeded.
And yet... you fall in love with these characters (most especially Jude and Willem), and there are certainly parts of this novel that are so well written you can feel them imprinted on your soul. It is difficult to say much without giving away any spoilers, but suffice it to say, reader beware, the book is full of graphic physical and sexual abuse.
I can't say I liked this book. It is much too upsetting to 'like'. But like with any art, I know it is good because of how intensely it moved me, and by how much I came to care about the characters.

"A Little Life" is an New York ensemble novel. Four men find their way in New York City, and though the story begins with all four, the focus narrows onto Jude, whose past and present Yanagihara describes, drip by drip, in achingly beautiful and scarring detail.

It's a complicated love, but I love this book. It's tragic, traumatic, melodramatic—and long, funny, serious, heartbreaking, artful, intense, joyful, depressing, stressful, despairing, exhausting. Reading this book is an emotional experience: its affective structuring is more apparent than most novels. For some readers, the novel gives too much, asks for too much, but I keep returning to it.

More than a two years after reading this book, I'm still haunted by the beautiful and tragic friendship between its primary protagonists. At more than 800 pages, it's a considerable investment of time (particularly given some of the disturbing elements of one of the character's life). Yanagihara manages the incredible feat of developing a set of characters over an entire lifetime, seamlessly jumping between the past, present, and future, all while rendering a world that is eerily timeless. Yanagihara omits concrete dates or significant current events that would give context to the world she has created. It's disconcerting, paradoxical and a major reason this book is so memorable.

This is a huge read (800 pages) and its subject matter can be confronting, but it is well worth taking the time to get to know these very memorable characters.

Oh man, this is a long book, but I never felt like I was slogging through its hundreds of pages. Instead, I kept turning the pages to get more glimpses of the lives of Jude and Willem (and Malcolm and JB, but to a lesser extent). This book was heartbreaking and, at times, incredibly difficult to read, but in spite of that, the highs were very high. I definitely cried through several scenes, usually because my heart was breaking, but a couple of times it was from happiness. This book . . . oh this book- it was truly an emotional roller coaster for me.

This was shortlisted for the Mann Booker prize in 2015 and I picked it up on a recommendation of a college student who considers it a life changing book in his life making me predisposed to like it. The woman can certainly write about a range of things and there are passages that are simply sublime. Ostensibly about the life long friendship of 4 male college roommates sort of a male version of "the Group" by Mary McCarthy. The friends are Jude, Willem, JB and Malcolm but the book is ultimately about Jude irreparably damaged as a child who can't be saved despite a plethora of people in his adult life who provide unconditional love. I found it implausible, melodramatic and could not grasp why Jude got unconditional love and life long support from a group of people, i.e. not sure what Jude brought to the table.

I don't think I've ever cried so much at a book in my life? Extremely brutal and heartbreaking but worth it, IMO.