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A Little Life Book Review

Book: A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Genre: Literary Fiction
Ratings: 4 stars (I don't recommend you to read this book if you are light-hearted)
Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Depression, Torture, Blood, Abuse, Death, Rape, Ableism (violent), Prostitution.
Strictly 18+

Lately, I just finished reading a 700-page chunk and I have so much to talk about it. This book is devastating and so intense that I felt overwhelmed at one point. Yes, it's a slow book anyway, but once you're into it, there's no going back. This book has so much graphic imagery like everything is so fantastically portrayed, that it becomes so pacifying and also disgusting to read. Like the parts for Jude's episodes and the parts with Caleb and Dr Taylor and a lot more, it makes it so terrifying and traumatising that it will make you frustrated and throw up. But even if you don't want to read it, you'll still read it to know more about it because it's written that way.

This book shows that life is not always easy. Life does not always have a sugar coating. Life is sad, dull, and so intolerable sometimes. It shows how terrible one's life can be. Life is short, but even in this little life, you have to suffer so much that you just want to disappear. This was how Jude felt, and why wouldn't he? The whole universe was against him. It doesn't matter how many good friends and colleagues he had or how many good adoptive parents he had. It's what the world and his luck bring to him. In this whole story, not even a single time did Jude seem to be happy. He was traumatised, anxious, frustrated, depressed, malnourished, and whatnot, all because of what had happened to him in the past and even in the present. Even when he encounters something good for a certain time, the whole world will go against him, which will again turn his world upside down. I don't know if this even happens in reality. How can a person suffer so much? There's a limit to everything, and this book has crossed all of it. This book is also about love, care, friendship, and family. It also shows that "all the most terrifying 'ifs' involve people. All the good ones do as well". But what's the point when even the good ones leave and the terrible ones have already destroyed you so much that you have no motivation to live? Also, Jude had this issue with his legs, so he had to amputate them. He had no limbs, no strength, no motivation, and no happiness (even if he tried hard), but only sadness, shame, torment, trauma, delusions, and hallucinations. How can a person ever live that way? I was so relieved by the ending, yet I was sad. I love you, Jude.
This book is beautifully written, with as many minute details as possible. Hanya did full justice to the book. But I'll still have mixed feelings about this. This book was good yet bad, beautiful yet ugly, surreal yet terrible, and addicting yet overwhelming. I don't know how I'll express my feelings. But yeah, I cried! A lot.

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