This book wasn’t for me but I know a lot of people loved it. More thoughts in the future (maybe) because it’s currently 1am and I very tired.

Because those heavy topics I mentioned earlier? The sexual assault and chronic illness? That's all they are here-- plot devices so we can watch as things get worse and worse and worse and see characters lose the will to live. It's not accurate. It's not how friendship works. There's nothing noble about suffering alone. Friends support each other and if you need help it's okay to ask for it. Not only do all four friends become enormous successes in their fields, but they’re constantly jetting off to exotic places (Paris for the weekend? Why not?!), buying up lofts (stylish and trendy downtown, of course, NEVER uptown) and having Malcolm decorate them in the best Architectural Digest taste. And then there’s the cultural snobbery. I howled when Willem was going to film Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and ALL OF HIS FRIENDS KNEW THE CHARACTERS FROM THE PLAY. I’ve seen Vanya several times, and even I don’t know all the characters in the play. Nothing in life is positive, there is only human suffering, true connection is impossible, predators will always find and ruin truly good people, everything is evil, the people who love you are not enough to save you, and your happiness will turn to ashes in your mouth. The End.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. Those promised "The Happy Years" are some of the most heartbreaking chapters I've ever read. I read another review where the person said she had to put the book down because this part of the book was too close and personal. To quote the reviewer: If you choose to read this book, proceed with extreme caution. There are so many trigger warnings, and it is such an emotional read, but if you feel that you are in the right headspace to read it, it will be a worthwhile read on trauma and friendship.

In the end, though, it is the very relentlessness that makes this a book unlike any other I’ve read. The novel is brilliantly redeemed by Yanahigara’s insistence on Jude’s right to suffer, her unwillingness to embrace the approved message that we get from Dave Pelzer et al (“Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable,” Pelzer writes in A Child Called It). A Little Life asks serious questions about humanism and euthanasia and psychiatry and any number of the partis pris of modern western life. It’s Entourage directed by Bergman; it’s the great 90s novel a quarter of a century too late; it’s a devastating read that will leave your heart, like the Grinch’s, a few sizes larger. An extraordinary book . . . A Little Life is quite deliberately a fable, not social realism . . . and all the more powerful for it. The truths it tells are wrenching, permanent.' - David Sexton, Evening Standard The wisdom that shines through this unshowy and compassionate book suggests our public life is much enriched by her presence’

The reader is pulled along by its express-train pace . . . it's certainly a great book.' - John Harding, Daily Mail A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, will be one of those books people ask you if you've read yet. Beat 'em to the punch.' - South Coast Today Whoever is looking for a book for enjoyment or edification: the ordeal in reading this was way more than I could bear. It is the saddest and gloomiest I've ever read. A doctor who's read this book would have to strongly advise a patient suffering clinical depression to avoid the misery of reading it... at all costs.

While the book details the lives of all four of them, Jude finds himself at the centre of this story, influencing the lives of his three friends. The more you read of A Little Life, the more you realize that it is really a novel about Jude, and the other three characters - though important - are secondary to the story of Jude's journey from a childhood full of sexual abuse to an unhappy adulthood.Of course, the list is not designed as a fait accompli, but rather as an inspiration for further discovery and debate. Tell us what you think – and what you think is missing – using the hashtag #100GreatestChildrensBooks. We hope that you find the poll as fascinating and illuminating as we have – as a celebration of writing, creativity and the books that have truly shaped us all. A Little Book on Form brilliantly synthesizes Hass’s formidable gifts as both a poet and a critic and reflects his profound education in the art of poetry. Starting with the exploration of a single line as the basic gesture of a poem, and moving into an examination of the essential expressive gestures that exist inside forms, Hass goes beyond approaching form as a set of traditional rules that precede composition, and instead offers penetrating insight into the true openness and instinctiveness of formal creation. What kind of book is this. How far does an author have to go? Why does an author have to get so disgustingly graphic, so horrific? Not only is Jude a top-notch litigator, but he’s also a brilliant mathematician. AND an excellent pianist. AND a singer of lieder. During school (full scholarship), he has a job at a bakery (oh, he’s also an amazing baker). So… when - and HOW - did he learn how to play piano and study German art songs? Seriously. I want to know. What bothers me is the assumption beneath all of this. Does he have to be so good at all of these things for people to love him? If someone has been abused and ISN’T as accomplished, isn’t this person just as worthy of love and understanding? For that matter, WHY do people love Jude? I don’t get it. All he seems to be doing for the entire book is saying, “I’m sorry.” Which brings me to... Because not only is this book so goddamn painful (and yes, everything you've heard about how sad this is is true tenfold), but it makes other stories feel less.