'A Little Life' by Hanya Yanagihara
- Reed
- Apr 11
- 3 min read
Updated: May 8
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (D)
Vibe: Trauma Olympics wrapped in beautiful prose with questionable portrayals of gay life
Quick Take: A novel that starts with promise but descends into misery porn that fundamentally misunderstands the gay male experience.
When folks on BookTok recommend A Little Life, they all say the same thing: "Prepare to be devastated." Well, I was devastated alright—but not in the way the author intended. What begins as a compelling story about four college friends navigating life in New York City quickly transforms into what I can only describe as trauma tourism, served with a side of fundamentally misunderstood gay relationships.
Yanagihara's novel follows Jude, Willem, JB, and Malcolm over decades as their friendships evolve, with Jude's horrific past gradually taking center stage. The prose is undeniably beautiful—I'll give Yanagihara that much—but beauty can't compensate for authenticity, and that's where this book repeatedly stumbles.
The novel's approach to trauma started as emotionally affecting but quickly became almost comical in its relentlessness. Each revelation about Jude's past felt less like complex character development and more like watching a cartoon character being hit with increasingly larger anvils. By the third or fourth catastrophic backstory reveal, I found myself rolling my eyes rather than reaching for tissues. Real trauma doesn't stack like Jenga blocks; it's messy, contradictory, and doesn't always follow a neat narrative arc of escalating horrors.
As for the friendships that form the novel's backbone, they oscillate between moments of genuine connection and stretches of such idealized devotion that they border on fantasy. Many critics have noted the implausibility of Willem's unwavering commitment, and I have to agree. As one reviewer in The Guardian put it, the novel creates "a world of perfect friendship, perfect love, and perfect suffering" where no one behaves with the complicated self-interest that characterizes actual human relationships. These men don't just support each other; they orbit each other with a gravitational pull that defies the natural entropy of adult friendships.
But my biggest issue? The gay relationships in this book read like they were written by someone who has observed gay men from a distance but never actually spoken to one about their intimate lives. The sex scenes hover awkwardly between clinical and melodramatic, missing the easy physicality, the humor, the specific dynamics that exist between men who love men. There's a stiffness to these portrayals that never rings true.
Willem, who becomes such a central character, gradually morphed into a caricature rather than a person for me. His saintly devotion to Jude lacks the complexity of real love, which includes frustration, boundaries, and occasionally putting yourself first. By the end, I couldn't muster any emotional investment in him because he didn't feel like a real gay man capable of a real gay relationship—he felt like a plot device wearing very expensive shoes.
"A Little Life" has been celebrated for its emotional depth, but I found its portrayal of suffering oddly hollow—a performance of pain rather than an authentic examination of it. It's not that gay men's lives can't be tragic; many of us have weathered profound trauma. But we also find joy, community, and laughter—elements that feel conspicuously absent from Yanagihara's relentlessly bleak narrative.
I wanted to love this book. The first hundred pages promised a rich exploration of male friendship and chosen family—themes that resonate deeply with the gay experience. Instead, I got 700+ pages of increasingly implausible misfortune wrapped in admittedly gorgeous prose.
If you're still curious despite my reservations, approach with caution. "A Little Life" isn't without merit—it's ambitious, emotionally provocative, and has clearly resonated with many readers. But as a gay man reading a book populated with gay characters, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading someone's idea of gay life rather than anything resembling the complicated, messy, joyful reality I know.
