Are you emotionally ready for 800 pages of heartache? A Little Life [2015] by Hanya Yanagihara is set in NY and follows four friends - Willem, J.B., Malcolm and Jude - with different aspirations, privilege, relationships, and temperaments. Before taking a quiz to see if you’re a Willem or a Malcolm, let me say that this is not a boys version of Sex In the City. Or any version of it. A Little Life is excruciatingly painful to read. We watch them grow up, grow apart, be there for one another, disappoint each other. We also learn about their pasts and the pains, physically and emotionally, that influence who they become. Beautiful and harrowing, this novel is one that might take you a while to read but is worth the journey.
Thank you to Will Simpson and Andy Whalen for recommending this book to me!