A Little Life is one of the most devastatingly beautifully written novels I have ever read. I sobbed my way through about the last quarter of this novel, but I still think it is one of the best books I have had the fortune to read and I am so glad I decided to read it. I will warn you, though, that A Little Life is very frank, and somewhat detailed, in its depiction of emotional, physical and sexual child abuse, which can make it very difficult to read at times. But it is such an exquisite portrait of a friendship that span decades, that A Little Life deserves to be read and loved.

A Little Life is about four college roommates, JB, Jude, Malcolm, and Willem, who become best friends, and it follows their friendship from their late teens until their early fifties. At first glance, the four friends seem like caricatures: JB is the rather flamboyantly gay artist; Jude is quiet and mysterious, but brilliant; Malcolm is the rich one; and Willem is the country boy who moves to the big city (New York) to become an actor. But Yanagihara, in this incredibly long and superbly written novel (I just cannot get over how beautiful her writing is), shows such great understanding of human nature and she takes her time developing each of her characters so that the reader truly understands who each character is, and the reader is able to sympathize with each of them regardless of their actions.

The novel and the central friendship both center themselves around Jude. Jude is younger than the other three by a couple of years. He has physical limitations as a result of a horrific childhood; his legs were injured due to an incident involving a truck, so he cannot walk very well and is prone to infections. The other characters in the novel gravitate towards loving him, caring for him and protecting him. Through Jude, we see how an abusive childhood can inform the rest of a person’s life. Jude thinks that the things that were done to him, and things that he allowed to be done of himself, make him unworthy of having a happy life with a successful career and people who love him. To cope with his internal pain and self-hatred, he cuts himself. And through Jude we learn how a person can have so much self-hatred that no matter how much we tell them it is not their fault, that they are worthy, and that they are loved, it does not always make the monsters from their past go away.

A Little Life is the kind of novel that I love as it allows readers to immerse themselves so deeply into the lives of the characters that we feel what they feel: happiness, anger, a deep and inconsolable loss.  I can see myself re-reading this novel, even knowing how devastating it is, for the pleasure of being able to fall in love with JB, Jude, Malcolm, and Willem’s friendship over and over again.