Book Review | Book Chatter

A Little Life
By Hanya Yanagihara
(Doubleday Books, Hardcover, 9780385539258, March 2015, 736pp.)

The Short of It:

This story will shatter you into a million little pieces but you need to read it anyway.

The Rest of It:

*No spoilers*

This isn’t the type of book where there is a huge plot reveal but not knowing its true subject does lend a rather precarious nature to the reading experience. Because of that, I won’t go into what the book is really about.

What I will say, is that it’s a book about friendships and relationships and the pain that comes with knowing that it’s impossible to really know everything about a person, no matter how close you are to them.

The book spans three decades and follows the lives of four men, all friends from college. We see them at their best, and their worst. There’s Malcolm, an architect of sorts, Willem, an up and coming actor, JB, a self-absorbed but extremely talented artist and Jude, a brilliant attorney who happens to be the center of the story.

Jude is damaged by the events of the past, but he’s struggling to realize his self-worth and it’s a brutal struggle to witness. There’s pain, lots of it, heart wrenching events that will twist your stomach into knots, but the writing! It’s so damn beautiful. I read it on my Kindle and every other paragraph is highlighted because I just couldn’t stand to leave the page without marking its passage in some way.

I loved every minute I spent with this book. It’s over 700 pages long and usually, I set my reading at a good pace to finish in a reasonable amount of time, but not with this one. This one I lingered on for a long, long time.

It’s by far, the best book I’ve read this year and as soon as I turned that last page, I wanted to run out and buy a physical copy just to admire it on the shelf. THAT COVER though. Don’t click on that link unless you want a hint at what some of it’s about. It’s an image that can mean many things and let me tell you, it does.

Have I completely scared you now? I hope not because it’s really such a wonderful book and I will continue to sing its praises until someone tells me to stop.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Luckiest Girl Alive (audio)
By Jessica Knoll (Read by Madeleine Maby)
Simon & Schuster Audio | ISBN 9781442380516 | May 2015

*No spoilers*

The Short of It:

How important is it to be perfect? What if it’s all a lie?

The Rest of It:

On the outside, twenty-nine year old Ani FaNelli has everything a woman could want. She’s gorgeous, is about to marry a handsome guy, has a glamorous magazine job, and everyone she knows seems to envy her. So what’s her problem?

Ani used to be known as Tiffany and when she was younger and attending a prestigious private school something happened to her that changed her life forever. Now, right before her wedding, she is forced to deal with those events from the past and her world comes crashing down around her.

I read online that Reese Witherspoon plans to direct a movie based on this book. She’s been doing this a lot lately and seems to have a good sense for what makes a good movie. So when I was offered this book to review, I quickly snatched it up. What I did not do though, was read anything about the story so I went into it cold. I wanted to be surprised.

I was surprised.

That said, there is a certain element of suspense that keeps you reading. It’s kind of like Gone Girl in that you want to keep reading. I mention it because it’s being compared to Gone Girl but they are very different in tone and the stories are nothing alike.

What I did not care for was the shallowness of the main character. Once I found out what her deal was, I empathized with her but not to the point of liking her. In the end, I came around somewhat and felt that the story came full circle but too much of the first half was spent on descriptive details regarding looks and well, just frivolous details, really.

On a technical note, I listened to the audio version and I can’t say enough about Simon & Schuster Audio. I’ve listened to a lot of audio books and so many of them have issues with the recording itself but I never have any issues with Simon & Schuster and the readers always seem to be spot on with their delivery.

In summary, once you get past the first half, the story really takes off but the main character’s shallowness held me back from really liking it.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.

Chatting with friends about books and life…