Sabrina
I don't know why this book gets the hate it does on Booktok because I loved it! I loved the way Reid writes, it's really engaging and hooks you in. I think all the characters, except for Monique's mother, is very flawed and Reid portrayed their nuances expertly. This was my first Reid book and definitely won't be last!
Hoover gets a lot of heat but this is my second book by her (first being Verity) and I loved it. It's not usually the types of books I read, not a big fan of romance, but it was hyped by Booktok so thought I'd give it a chance. The story itself is very simple but I think the magic in Hoover's writing is in the nuances - I loved the dialogue between Kenna and Ledger, I loved how real it was and it didn't seem scripted, I loved how emotions weren't over exaggerated and over the top and felt very real and relateable. Fantastic read, I would recommend.
I watched Troy, the TV show, recently so reading this I had the visuals to relate to but man, I loved this book. I felt the end was a bit rushed, I think they deserved better after how long the author spent building their story up. So I was a bit disappointed with the end but it's a lovely book and I loved most of the characters. Yes, even Achilles.
Currently reading this and will update once I finish it. I thought I'd give up on it when I started it but I'm 75% in now and surprisingly, persevered. It's different to what I usually read, Shakespeare really throws me but it's kept me trundling along nevertheless.
I don't think the characters are very realistic though. I hate how they talk about Meredith and her looks, there's only a handful of times where she is spoken about without how beautiful or feminine she is being mentioned. We get it, she is hot. It doesn't need to come up every single time she is in the picture. I also think Oliver is very flawed but I suppose that was the entire point of the book.
But most of all, I cannot reconcile Richard's death, or rather, his fall out. I don't even remember why he was so angry. How can you claim to be so very close and then someone starts acting like a dick (no pun intended) and all of a sudden, you are ostracised? If anyone else within that group had started acting peculiar, they would have intervened but no, not for Richard? So was it all a farce? Was their friendship not as deep as they claimed it to be?
Edit - okay I have just finished it. The entire last half of it, as the characters spiralled, ironically reminded me of Macbeth and how he came unhinged too. I have changed my rating to a two because I just don't buy the whole premise. They never illustrated Oliver and James to have such a strong connection, such chemistry, such devotion for Oliver to do what he did. So it all ended up in a heap of flat pancake for me.
This book made me feel all sorts of things. It's a very simple story, mind, but the way it's written... Ooooof. The entire time, I was reliving my first real brush with ‘love' at the tender age of 15 and how intense it was and how every emotion and feeling and touch was so magnified by this intensity. I loved this book for what it was, never trying to be over complicated and something it's not. And I loved it even more for making this 36 year old feel like a giddy 15 year old again.
I needed this book on the back of a very heavy book I had finished that had put me in a depressing lull. The pace of this book was great as I finished it rather quickly however, man what a predictable plot! I couldn't connect with either of them, which may have been the point, the writing was very blah and for the life of me, I don't get the hype behind this on Tiktok. Bet there are better psychological books that you can waste money on
I am going to attempt to write a review and I am going to try doing it without spoilers. My only disclaimer is that I don't think I'll do this book justice in any way by writing one and if I am reductive in any way, it's due to my own lack of creativity when writing this review than it being about the book in itself.
I would like to take a moment to write about Yanagihara. There's been a lot said about her, people judging her based on the story she has written, and written so well. About how she shouldn't write about the LGBTQI+ community if she isn't a part of it, she shouldn't write about the disabled community if she is able bodies, she shouldn't write about the African American community if she isn't one. It makes me laugh when I read these because if that's the norm now, the whole genre of fiction writing will need to be eradicated, no? Isn't fiction supposed to be figments of your narrative, how you see it, how you think it feels like, how you think the minorities would be treated? If we have started judging books of fiction so harshly, if we are accusing it's creators of all these awful things, I think it's a true reflection of your own insecurities rather than how the book itself portrays it's subject matter. It's how it made you feel when you read about these things and without trying to be holier than thou (and probably being that anyway), you may be projecting? There's a few reviews I have read and seen where they have said ‘Don't recommend this book, Why are people recommending this book' and that stumps me. Have we collectively become that bubble wrapped and weak that we cannot recommend a fictitious book to our peers, friends and family, who can make their own decision on whether they can handle it or not? I'll never stop recommending it. Ever.
Anyway, enough time wasted on the wasted, let's talk about Yanagihara and really talk about her and her writing. This book is very, very well written. I am a speed reader with ADHD so I tend to skip a lot of sentences when reading but I found myself not doing that with ‘A Little Life'. I found myself reading an re-reading the long paragraphs, imagining and re-imagining the beautiful settings she had created for Jude and Willem, cowering and hiding as I was triggered by certain parts that made Jude, Jude. Yanagihara knows how to build her characters, some more than others, true, but you can never take away how this book made you feel and all credit to that goes to Yanagihara. Not even the story but the different ways she told her story, easing you into a sense of comfort, lulling you into thinking that hope and love will prevail and then slowly and unbeknownst to even you, taking it away. She is what I call a master storyteller and I take my hat off to her for her craftmanship and her wordsmanship.
Now, let's get to it.
I'll echo what someone else had said so eloquently - Fuck. This. Book.
Albeit, I don't think they said it in the dramatic way I am intending it. While I do agree with why a lot of people have given this book a one star, and in some instances, no stars, I think I can take a more balanced approach and give it the five stars it deserves because of how it made me feel. I cried many tears reading this, I cried and cried and sometimes I cried without even realising I was crying. I cried for Jude, I cried for poor forgotten Malcolm, I cried for Harold, I cried for Andy but I mostly cried for Willem and I also mostly cried for me.
I found it hard to connect with Jude, which is a difficult feat considering 80% of the book is written in his perspective. But it's true, I found it hard to connect with him, to empathise, to sympathise and to see what he saw, or rather, didn't see. To understand his stubbornness, his selfishness, him. Instead, I connected more with the secondary characters; with Jude's peers and pillars of comfort, even with poor JB. With all the people in Jude's life, who stuck by him, who unconditionally loved him, he accepted him and who supported him. Even when he acted spoilt, acted exactly the way he did in the monastery with his tantrums, even when he was his own worst enemy, even when he hurt everyone around him because he was so insular in his pain.
I think the best character in the book was Willem. He was the best one and he deserved so much more. Willem in his simplicity, in his complexity, in his selflessness, in his pure light and love, in his complete self-awareness, like he so cognizantly concluded “Perhaps because of this, he felt he always knew who and what he was, which is why, as he moved farther and then further away from the ranch and his childhood, he felt very little pressure to change or reinvent himself. He would never try to pretend he was born to such things, because he knew he wasn't; he was a ranch hand's son from western Wyoming, and his leaving didn't mean that everything he had once been was erased, written over by time and experiences and the proximity to money”
In the end, it doesn't even have anything to do with Jude and his horrible past and tragedies. It's a story about these four friends in New York and their lives and what they become to each other. And while Jude and his past clouds most of these relationships and is always there, like a heavy cloud, it does in some way take a backseat to these relationships and that is why I would highly recommend you power through the book. Even if you don't like it, even you think it's too hard, even if you hate it. Read it. Because it's one you will never forget. It can be very triggering though so if you think you won't be able to handle it, you are probably right.
What. A. Book.
I know it has received mixed reviews but I think it has a lot to do with connection. This book latched on to me, embedded in me and opened my mind to such an adventure, that I went on vicariously with January.
As a third culture child, the world of in-between resounded - loud, unnervingly and strongly - and I know what it's like to be neither here nor there, to not belong, to not have a home. Oh the adventures I wanted to have when I was locked away in a desert, with a man very much like Locke. It's been almost 20 years since I left that life and the wound is still tender.
I am new to the world of fantasy and if all fantasy books are like this, I am now a permanent member of the club!
