Book Review: ‘A Little Life’

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Updated 27 October 2024
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Book Review: ‘A Little Life’

  • Spanning more than 700 pages, the novel is an emotionally intense journey that delves deep into the lives of four college friends as they navigate adulthood in New York City

Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life,” originally published in 2015, is a monumental and devastating exploration of trauma, friendship and the complexities of human resilience. 

Spanning more than 700 pages, the novel is an emotionally intense journey that delves deep into the lives of four college friends as they navigate adulthood in New York City. 

At its core, however, the novel revolves around Jude St. Francis, a character whose harrowing past and enduring pain form the emotional backbone of the story.

The power of “A Little Life” lies in its unflinching portrayal of suffering. Yanagihara masterfully crafts a narrative that is both intimate and unrelenting, capturing the profound impact of Jude’s traumatic experiences. His past, gradually revealed through the novel, casts a long shadow over his present, affecting not only his relationship with himself but also with those who care for him. 

The depiction of trauma is raw and visceral, leaving a lasting impression on the reader. Yanagihara does not spare the reader from the depths of Jude’s anguish, making the novel a challenging but profoundly moving experience.

While the novel is heavy with themes of pain and loss, it also explores the transformative power of friendship. The bond between Jude and his friends — Willem, Malcolm and JB — offers moments of tenderness and connection that provide respite from the overwhelming darkness. Yanagihara’s portrayal of these relationships is one of the novel’s strengths, offering a nuanced look at love, loyalty and the ways in which friends become chosen family. 

The deep emotional ties between the characters elevate “A Little Life” beyond a mere tale of suffering, making it a meditation on the capacity for human connection to heal, even when the scars run deep.

Yanagihara’s prose is haunting and beautiful, drawing the reader into the lives of the characters with an intensity that is hard to resist. The novel’s length allows for a thorough and immersive exploration of the characters’ inner worlds, making their joys and sorrows feel deeply personal. 

Yet, “A Little Life” is not without its challenges. Its relentless focus on Jude’s trauma can be overwhelming, and the novel’s unremitting sadness may prove too intense for some readers. However, for those willing to confront its emotional weight, the novel offers a deeply affecting and unforgettable experience.

In “A Little Life,” Yanagihara examines the extremes of human experience — both the agonizing depths of despair and the redemptive potential of love. It is a novel that demands patience and emotional endurance but rewards readers with a story of profound emotional depth. 

Although it may not be suitable for everyone, “A Little Life” is a masterpiece of modern literature, providing an unflinching look at pain, survival and the bonds that sustain us.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Private Finance, Public Power’

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Updated 27 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Private Finance, Public Power’

  • Public-private negotiations over financial governance has evolved into an essential ecosystem of banking risk management

Authors: Peter Conti-Brown and Sean H. Vanatta

Banks in America are private institutions with private shareholders, boards of directors, profit motives, customers, and competitors. And yet the public plays a key role in deciding what risks are taken as well as how, when, and to what end. Public-private negotiations over financial governance has evolved into an essential ecosystem of banking risk management.

In “Private Finance, Public Power,” Peter Conti-Brown and Sean Vanatta offer a new history of finance and public policy in the US by examining the idiosyncratic way the nation manages financial risk across the public-private divide.

Covering two centuries, from the founding of the Republic to the early 1980s, Conti-Brown and Vanatta describe the often-contested, sometimes chaotic, engagement of bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, and others in the overlapping spaces of the public-private system of bank supervision.

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Anxious Generation’ by Jonathan Haidt

Updated 26 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Anxious Generation’ by Jonathan Haidt

In “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults.

He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Standard Model’

Updated 25 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Standard Model’

Authors: Yuval Grossman and Yossi Nir

“The Standard Model” is an elegant and extremely successful theory that formulates the laws of fundamental interactions among elementary particles.

This incisive textbook introduces students to the physics of the Standard Model while providing an essential overview of modern particle physics, with a unique emphasis on symmetry principles as the starting point for constructing models.

“The Standard Model” equips students with an in-depth understanding of this impressively predictive theory.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Dynamics and Astrophysics of Galaxies’

Updated 24 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Dynamics and Astrophysics of Galaxies’

Author: Jo Bovy

This book provides an in-depth introduction to the dynamics, formation, and evolution of galaxies.

Starting with the basics of galactic structure and galactic dynamics, it helps students develop a sophisticated understanding of the orbital structure of spirals, ellipticals, and other types of galaxies.

The book demonstrates how observations led to the discovery that galaxies are dominated by dark matter and explores in detail how structure evolves from the primordial universe to form the halos that host galaxies.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’

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Updated 24 June 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’

  • Haley structures Malcolm’s blistering critiques — including his rejection of nonviolent protest and disillusionment with white liberalism — with journalistic precision

Author: Alex Haley

Malcolm X’s posthumously published 1965 autobiography, crafted with Alex Haley, remains an indispensable document of the 20th-century US.

Its visceral narrative traces an extraordinary metamorphosis — from street hustler to revolutionary thinker — and offers enduring lessons about systemic injustice and the power of self-reinvention.

The opening chapters detail the African American civil rights activist’s fractured youth: His father’s violent death (officially a car accident, though family attributed it to white supremacists), his mother’s mental collapse and his pivot to crime as “Detroit Red.”

What struck me most was how imprisonment became his unlikely crucible.

Through voracious self-education and conversion to the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X transformed into one of America’s most incisive racial commentators.

Haley structures Malcolm’s blistering critiques — including his rejection of nonviolent protest and disillusionment with white liberalism — with journalistic precision.

Malcolm X’s 1964 pilgrimage to Makkah proves the memoir’s most consequential pivot. Witnessing racial unity in the holy city fundamentally reoriented his worldview. He began advocating cross-racial coalition-building against oppression, a philosophical evolution abruptly halted by his February 1965 assassination.

Haley’s contribution deserves note: His disciplined prose tempers Malcolm’s polemical intensity, lending the narrative reflective depth without diluting its urgency.

While academics occasionally quibble over timeline specifics (notably Malcolm X’s early NOI chronology), the memoir’s moral core stands unchallenged.

What lingers for me is Malcolm X’s intellectual ferocity — how his advocacy for education as liberation weaponized knowledge against subjugation.

Malcolm X’s demand for Black self-determination continues to challenge America’s unresolved racial contradictions with unnerving relevance. Half a century later, the book remains essential reading not for easy answers, but for its uncompromising questions.