love will tear us apart

[sevenclowds]

Shoutout to all the mcr fans who know every word to the Revenge album but are still fucking clueless when it comes to the song titles

[u-r]

ft willz is proof that frerard was real and it was the literal worst thing that ever happened

[m0rnlngstar]

jb didn’t deserve to see his friends die. period.

[ysabeell]

Jude and Willem au they are dancing and Jude looks up at Willem who kisses him on the nose and Jude closes his eyes relishing it and in that moment he will think he is truly, finally, happy. He'll lean his head back on Willem's shoulder, and the rest of the day is perfect and tender and they'll go to sleep and wake up the next day and go out to the city and see JB's art show, will go see Malcolm and Sophie and then they'll go back home to the Lantern house and Jude will start to make food and Willem will secretly, sneak away to their room and bring Jude a gift. What is that gift you ask? Well, it's a picture of Jude and Willem and they are laughing and Jude isn't covering his smile in this one because it's been years since he's done that and besides, he no longer thinks about being ashamed of laughing around Willem. Jude feels so loved in that moment, and Willem loves him so much, and Jude hugs him and Willem says: "Happy Birthday, Judy." And Jude is giddy and happy and the happiness lasts for the rest of their lives :,)

[m0rnlngstar]

thank you hanya yanagihara, now i can’t listen to Hey Jude by The Beatles without immediately sobbing

[marscia]

i am capital D DEVASTATED

[jamesfarrowss]

what hits me the most about a little life is that the reader plays the same role as jude's friends. we want him to get better, we see him going through life and we learn his story. we want to help but we can't, because we're just spectators, exactly as the majority of the people in jude's life are.

[kenziecore]

i am trying to sleep but i am being haunted by the image of harold holding jude’s head in his lap and singing him a lullaby as he writhes in pain

[coffee-shop-bisexual]

“my child is fine” your child’s comfort character is jude st. francis

[lovingharold-deactivated2021081]

i can’t stop thinking about how malcolm, jb, and willem built a home for jude. malcolm, the architect, physically builds jude a home. a home that’s easily accessible for jude without making jude feel less than. malcolm, who built it with respect for jude and his space, adjusting the home to fit jude, when all jude’s life, he has had to adapt to everything else. jb, who is as opposite to jude as one can be, but especially through his artistic endeavors, as opposed to jude’s upright, logistical, methodical ways. jb provides jude with pieces to decorate his home, sealing in the fact that this is his home. because home is when we dare fasten the nail in the wall, when we dare indulge in decor, for these things signify permanence, signify the roots one begins to plant. the decorum is unmoving; it stays there until someone chooses to take it down; it is stability. it is the reassuring presence that is there when jude leaves and remains when he comes back. and last of all, there is willem, the sole warm body jude shares his space with, a body that arguably loves jude more than he loves himself, a body so overwhelmingly kind and careful. and what is home, if not for a safe space, a space filled with comfort, a space shared with and sustained by love? so of course, with their absences, jude crumbles. his best friends, in their respective ways, come together to make a home for jude. when malcolm and willem are gone, when jb is at a distance, the space loses its safety, comfort, love. home is no longer home. home crumbles from the missing pillars that have held it up for so long

[jamesfarrowss]

wow, i can't believe jude st. francis and willem ragnarsson are happy and alive and living together and a little life ended on page 711

[jamesfarrowss]

jude st. francis is one of those characters you can never stop thinking about. even after finishing a little life, jude is still there, somehow, he is everywhere. jude is the kind of character that remains with you, and a little life is the kind of book that changes the way you see the world around you.

[alittlelifebook]

A few of you have asked where, exactly, on Lispenard Street Willem and Jude lived. Their building is modeled on number 56, which is east of Church, on the south side of Lispenard. But I imagined this building across the street on the north side, where number 57—the old Pearl Paint building—stands. @stevereadsbook, this is for you! #alittlelifebook

[juderagnarsson]

“I barely need to breathe for you to spread your fingers over my chest and count my ribs the way a child would count stars. But of course, you’re no longer here, are you? I am one to know that life isn’t fair, evidence carefully labeled and marked, ready to be cross-examined at first command. Exhibit one: the jaws of the past. Exhibit two: the ghosting pain. Exhibit three: the traitor of a body. Exhibit four: you, gone. Exhibit five: everything and everything. In this house that we built together, I was an empty room that your name filled up, and living felt so much less like a sin. Eyes closed I can almost hear you say again, Five minutes, and I open my mouth to reply as always, Five, only to choke and claw on barren dirt. Every night is a funeral in which I survive, and you die again and again. I will not lie and say I do not miss the press of a blade against my skin. Because I do— you know I do. But every time I breathe is a different kind of bruising, bleeding. If I wanted pain, I would call your name instead: Willem, Willem. What’s more painful than knowing that you won’t come to me? But I will allow myself other lies, like this green sweater I still wrap myself with for the memory of your arms around me, for the ghost of your touch. And I want you to see, as much as I would hate for you to see, that I want so much to be haunted. I pretend you will come back, and I write to you the way we always did— Dear comrade; Dear comrade— messages turning into birds that always know their way home. And I wait for the door to creak open, wait for you to smile at me again, and I’ll tell you how much I missed you. Oh, I miss you. Grant me this lie. I beg you.”

— JUDE WAITING TO TELL WILLEM A STORY by FREYA L.

[girloikawa]

when hanya yanagihara said “and so i try to be kind in everything i see, because in everything i see, i see him” and when hanya yanagihara said “‘what can i do?’ willem asked. ‘nothing,’ jude said. they were quiet. ‘but willem—will you stay with me for a little while?’ ‘of course,’ he said” and when hanya yanagihara said “those lines he thought of whenever he was coming home, coming back to greene street after a long time away—“and tell me this: i must be absolutely sure. this place i’ve reached, is it truly ithaca?”—as all around him, the apartment filled with light” and when hanya yanagihara said “they all loved jude, and admired him, but he often felt that jude had let him see a little more of him—just a little—than he had shown the others, and was unsure what he was supposed to do with that knowledge” and when hanya yanagihara said “why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? why wasn’t it even better? it was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified” and when hanya yanagihara said “‘and who are you?’ ‘i’m willem ragnarasson and i will never let you go’” and when hanya yanagihara said “since then, willem has held him in the same way every night, even through july” and when hanya yanagihara said “finally, and most important, jude st francis, my best friend and love of my life, for everything” and whe

[fluencylevelfrench]

"Oh, dying," he said dismissively. "We're all dying. He just knew his death would come sooner than he had planned. But that doesn't mean they weren't happy years, that it wasn't a happy life." -A little life, p. 621 by Hanya Yanagihara

[st-pam]