A Little Life

This book is tortured and exhausting. The author’s need to add extensive details and go off on tangents that add nothing to the story is frustrating. And the never ending descriptions of abuse and an inability to find any healing take good writing and turn it into an exhausting experience.

When people say this book is hard to read..it’s not necessarily because it’s that sad. It is a pitiful story and you feel for the characters but dear God it is an exhausting read. The amount of painful detail and rabbit holes the chapters go down, truly takes away from the story itself. So much so that by the end of it you’re just grateful it’s over regardless of the ending.

If you enjoy seriously listening / feeling the worst conditions of man and learning from them; you will love this book. It’s hard, it’s a difficult read but it is beautiful and thought provoking. It is not for the fragile.

Have never felt so many emotions in a course of the month it took me to finish this book. Cried and sobbed and wept like a baby - will be a book i will never forget for as long as I live.

I like the way the without forms her sentences.

This book is so moving and so well written!!!

I can’t help but give this precious, different, sad, and alarming story about an extraordinary man, who could not grow up, a five star rating. There are a lot of characters. For a reason. The reader might get discouraged with the barrage of people and scenes, but never fear… they will reappear throughout the novel revealing more each visit. The reader has time to know them better and understand what you learned earlier. Stick with this book, and the unique way the author writes. I’ve never read stream of conscience written this way. Tenses disappear. You start reading something and suddenly you are somewhere you didn’t know you were headed. This is true. For three months, I could not finish reading this novel. I read a few paragraphs and gratefully found something else to do. I only read while at a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t want to stop the pain. I wanted to see success. Was there a happy ending? And yet, it ended rather beautifully, and the rest the reader can discover for themselves. This special, great novel explores who you think you are. And if you are turned inside out, colorful and bleeding, engrossing and gross, who are you then? Who do you praise or blame?

Honestly this book probably needs a trigger warning for some readers, so if you are sensitive to certain subjects including certain traumas then I would advise you to caution yourself. However, this book is so beautifully written. It keeps the reader engaged throughout this entire book and reaches a level of heart wrenching and complete sadness that I didn’t know I could reach when reading a book. The last half of the book I never wanted to put it down. My heart hurts and it will take some time to emotionally recover from this but would recommend this book to anyone willing to trek through this emotional rollercoaster.

Every synonym for tedious applies to this book; banal, annoying, boring, dreary, humdrum, exhausting… where was the editor? It had just enough juicy tidbits to keep you going, but ultimately didn’t care about any of the characters and just wanted it to end already. I love a deep dive character study, but this was so repetitive and boo f*ing hoo… pick up Demon Copperhead instead!

The author’s character development is superb! I definitely felt like I knew these characters personally and I internalized all of their emotions as my own. This story shows the best and the worst side of men. Obviously, the abusers were the worst of the worst and yet the loving courageous men like Harold, Willem, Andy, Malcolm were the best of the best! I highly recommend reading it if you can emotionally withstand the pain. It’s beautifully written and tragically sad…