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A review by theremightbecupcakes
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Did not finish book.
First, this author uses a strange (and which I consider sloppy) literary device: they changes characters without specifying them by name. A new paragraph/chapter/section will just start talking about “he” and “him” and the reader has to guess between four, then five main male characters who “he” is.
Also, once before I stopped reading, the POV radically changes and “he” starts talking to the reader. What?
Second, this novel blatantly and loudly fails the Bedchel test. Women flit in and out, never to be seen again, only known as this person’s lesbian friend or that person’s coworker. The one long-standing female character exists to be a wife, and never has s conversation about anything but her husband or the main focus of the novel, the wounded main-child. All the women are two-dimensional props.
Which brings me to the main reason I cannot finish this novel:
Third, I truly feel this novel fetishizes/glorifies (choose your verb) trauma, self-harm, and resulting toxic behavior and relationships. I say this as someone with CPTSD and currently in CPTSD immersion therapy, someone who is chronically ill with an autoimmune disorder and who has to use a wheelchair in public. The behaviors that draw people inexplicably to Jude—violent self-harm over years, egregious medical self-neglect, strict and seemingly random friendship rules (don’t ask questions about x y z, don’t take my photograph, I need to be checked on twice a day or Bad Things Might Happen)—are personality-disordered behaviors that in real life either drive people away or create horribly toxic relationships.
Granted, both Andy and Jude so far seem to understand that their relationship is both inappropriate and toxic, but Jude has this dreamy ideal vision of his rescue-victim friendship with Willem...and Willem seems to think it’s completely normally to be living only half a life because the other half is being sucked up by Jude’s ever-growing needs. And what bothers me is this doesn’t feel like storytelling—I have read many, many well-crafted novels about horrific relationships. It feels to me as reader that the writer feels this is normal, or that this is fantasy-fulfillment to the writer. I know I am getting rather personal in this review, but this novel has upset me in a most uncomfortable way, to the point that I may need to discuss it in therapy. There is something wrong here. I wish I could flush the 33 percent I have read from my system.
Also, once before I stopped reading, the POV radically changes and “he” starts talking to the reader. What?
Second, this novel blatantly and loudly fails the Bedchel test. Women flit in and out, never to be seen again, only known as this person’s lesbian friend or that person’s coworker. The one long-standing female character exists to be a wife, and never has s conversation about anything but her husband or the main focus of the novel, the wounded main-child. All the women are two-dimensional props.
Which brings me to the main reason I cannot finish this novel:
Third, I truly feel this novel fetishizes/glorifies (choose your verb) trauma, self-harm, and resulting toxic behavior and relationships. I say this as someone with CPTSD and currently in CPTSD immersion therapy, someone who is chronically ill with an autoimmune disorder and who has to use a wheelchair in public. The behaviors that draw people inexplicably to Jude—violent self-harm over years, egregious medical self-neglect, strict and seemingly random friendship rules (don’t ask questions about x y z, don’t take my photograph, I need to be checked on twice a day or Bad Things Might Happen)—are personality-disordered behaviors that in real life either drive people away or create horribly toxic relationships.
Granted, both Andy and Jude so far seem to understand that their relationship is both inappropriate and toxic, but Jude has this dreamy ideal vision of his rescue-victim friendship with Willem...and Willem seems to think it’s completely normally to be living only half a life because the other half is being sucked up by Jude’s ever-growing needs. And what bothers me is this doesn’t feel like storytelling—I have read many, many well-crafted novels about horrific relationships. It feels to me as reader that the writer feels this is normal, or that this is fantasy-fulfillment to the writer. I know I am getting rather personal in this review, but this novel has upset me in a most uncomfortable way, to the point that I may need to discuss it in therapy. There is something wrong here. I wish I could flush the 33 percent I have read from my system.