When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
In rich and resplendent prose, Hanya Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and …
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.
In rich and resplendent prose, Hanya Yanagihara has fashioned a tragic and transcendent hymn to brotherly love, a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark examination of the tyranny of memory and the limits of human endurance.
--front flap
Challenging in every sense of the word. The unrelenting abuse inflicted on Jude felt like torture porn. I threw my hands up repeatedly wondering if such extremes were an intentional choice. Alternately exploitative and compelling to explore the mindset of someone so mistreated as well as those around him. Goes on too long. A genuine art experience from a book. I’m grateful for it but don’t need to repeat. Both 5 stars and 0, so no rating.
The writing is beautiful and goes a long way in redeeming some of the book’s weaknesses. It really is the best writing I’ve read in a while. Early on, someone asked me how the book I was reading was and I’d said that it was devastatingly beautiful. The problem is that, as good as the writing is, Three quarters of the way through, I just wanted it to end.
Some issues:
The book says it’s about the relationship between four men but it’s really only about two of them and, even then, leans heavily in the direction of one man - Jude - and his tragic life. The story is really about him.
Malcolm is nearly invisible as a character. Why does this character exist?
The whole second half of the book could have been lopped off. It would have been an excellent book. Instead, it goes on too long …
The writing is beautiful and goes a long way in redeeming some of the book’s weaknesses. It really is the best writing I’ve read in a while. Early on, someone asked me how the book I was reading was and I’d said that it was devastatingly beautiful. The problem is that, as good as the writing is, Three quarters of the way through, I just wanted it to end.
Some issues:
The book says it’s about the relationship between four men but it’s really only about two of them and, even then, leans heavily in the direction of one man - Jude - and his tragic life. The story is really about him.
Malcolm is nearly invisible as a character. Why does this character exist?
The whole second half of the book could have been lopped off. It would have been an excellent book. Instead, it goes on too long and is too focused on Jude’s brokenness.
Every single person Jude has ever met up until school is evil incarnate.
An adult being adopted? This was unexpected and, because it was such an odd thing, I kept expecting it to figure into the story in a big way but it never really does.
