Recently Read: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This book was torturous.
Like seriously. Just emotionally devastating from page one. At the very surface level it is about 4 college friends and their lives after moving to New York but what this book is actually about is trauma, friendship, recovery, and the ability or inability to move on with your life after unspeakable horror. Nature versus nurture. Whether or not people actually can change or if their fates are sealed from the very beginning.
I have really mixed feelings about this book. I’m confused because by the first 30 pages I knew it would be one of the best I read all year and by the first 100 I truly felt that it will be one of the best books I read in my life. It is compelling but maybe not enjoyable? Demanding and yet not satisfying. It can be emotionally manipulative and overdone and yet a simple and astonishing story with metaphor about front porch lights and summer honey had me closing the book and wiping away tears.
Yanagihara is an incredibly storyteller. She has emerged as a truly fantastic new(ish) voice in contemporary literature and I don’t think this is the last we will hear from her. Her timing was phenomenal throughout most of this book - the way she slipped in pieces of this horrifying story was masterful and just indicative of a true understanding of craft. She is a force to be reckoned with and so is this book.
