A Little Life

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
720 Pages


"When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he'll not only be unable to overcome--but that will define his life forever."


To hear the critics go on you'd think this was the greatest book ever written.  I think it was just okay for two reasons.  One,  two of the characters of the four friends are hardly part of the story at all, the third character is a little deeper but the book is mainly about Jude.   The second reason is that the author has created the damaged character of Jude who dwells in his pain about his past and lets it control his life.  Then the author has all these additional bad things happen to Jude over and over again.  It becomes a bit soap operaish.