This was, without a doubt the most a book has ever moved me. I was a sit-in-a-boiling-hot-shower-and-think kind of moved.I was filled with jubilation, fear, anger and deep, deep sorrow as I read of the lives of these men and their stories.

It was the kind of book where I bawled at the end, and it was only after a long hot shower that I truly realised the profound effect it had had on me.

It is not just a sad book. Or a gay book. Or a tragic book. It is not just about friends, or family or school or growing up or death.

It is, as the title suggests, about life.

Despite the (at times, difficult to swallow) subject matter, and how the book ends, it left me with a deep impression of calm and closure. There was no happy ending, and although I wished and hoped (and still do hope that the Judes of the world find peace, love, safety and belonging) there was something devestatingly simple and comforting about the ending.

I, like many who read it hoped that the story ended several chapters before it did- so that everyone was happy. But that is not life.

Through her brilliant use of chronology, timing, characterisation and setting, Yanagihara made Jude, JB, Willem and Malcom feel real. Their realness, the brutally honest descriptions of their qualities and flaws made them seem too real to simply be characters. It felt, at times, that I was reading a biography rather than fiction.

However, for readers with a history of suicide, death, self harm, sexual and physical abuse, many of the chapters are potentially very triggering and are very confronting.

Similarly, readers who don't like emotional books are warned to stay away. This is about as emotional as they come.

That said, this book will undoubtedly stay with me forever.