A Little Life Is Not A Sad Book [Substack Exclusive]
Maggie finally read A Little Life and has some THOUGHTS
Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life has been in my consciousness for a few years now. It started when I was first getting into the BookTube sphere circa 2019 and stumbled across paperbackdreams’s reading vlog for the book (see below). Since that video I watched and read a lot of content about this book, both from the sensationalist angle (“this book is so good and it will ruin you!!”) and the highly critical angle (“this book is toxic manipulation and deeply problematic”). I finally read A Little Life over the course of the last couple weeks, and I had some pretty strong feelings about it and what we’re meant to take away from this reading experience.
For context, it might help to take a look at the various reading vlogs below from some of my favorite BookTubers (whose opinions I agree and disagree with in many ways):
The OG, paperbackdreams:
One of my favorites during the pandemic (and who I’ve mentioned on the pod before), Noelle Gallagher:
And my current favorite BookTuber (who is a total beacon of sunshine and makes awesome content), allisonpaiges:
***Before you listen to the episode, I feel a strong need to stress this point: this book is a lot. And I spoil basically the whole thing in this episode. So please listen/read at your own risk (and I don’t mean that in a fun goofy way – I mean it for real. Content warnings for this book are all over the internet, so please look them up if you need to. Take care of yourselves!)
(Is this title clickbait? Probably. But I promise it makes sense).