Why I Hate A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Dear Reader, 

I read a total of 200 pages worth of A Little Life before I gave up on this book. It was by far one of the most disgusting, horrifying, and vile things I’ve read. 

First and foremost, this book has some NSFW topics that honestly sort of feel like trauma porn. These characters battle through, depression, addictions, poverty, sexual abuse, and so much more. The worst part isn’t the difficult topics, there’s a way they can be done with grace and empathy for real life victims, it was the way it was written. We were basically reading the most personal inner thoughts of these four people, and all the ways their lives sucked. It’s like 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher, but on crack laced with fentanyl. 

The only two Black characters of this book are basically just there to move the plot along. They provide tension and occasionally some substance in fights with Jude, but rarely do they make any real progress as characters or people. They’re not well rounded characters, but rather flat and lack sustenance. Oh, and she kills one of them off to add more trauma to Jude’s life. 

Jude is the main focus of this book, and honestly his story feels like a fanfiction for Wattpad circa 2012. He’s sexually abused, in the foster system, ran over by a car, raped, sold to prostitution, and eventually becomes an amputee. I swear I read this plot in a “I was sold to One Direction” fanfic at four in the morning about 10 years ago. There’s no way a book needs to be filled with this much horrific information, especially if it's on one fucking character. I read a comment on a TikTok that described Jude’s life as a compilation of every episode of Criminal Minds and Law and Order: SVU. The worst part of it all, it ends with his suicide. I looked it up, because I had to know if he at least got his happy ending. 

What is the point of this book? To trigger people? To tell people to give up when life gets too hard? What the actual fuck is this book? If you’re someone who is easily triggered, or affected by the content you consume, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. I wish I could go back in time before I read the rest of the plot summary online, and even further back to when I had never even opened this book. 

-Grace Sofia