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A Little Life

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A Little Life

By: Hanya Yanagihara
Narrated by: Matt Bomer
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About this listen

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking audiobook of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance.

When four graduates 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cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity.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.

©2025 Hanya Yanagihara (P)2025 Macmillan Australia Audio Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Urban Emotionally Gripping
All stars
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I read the book and audio at the same time, and it made it feel more real. This book has to be the most heartbreaking book I have ever read, it's full of despair, depression and sadness with some sprinkles of happy times. It is so beautifully written that it's almost like you've watched their whole lives like a movie and you have also lost them. I loved this book, but I feel it's also a book I wouldn't recommend to anyone it's that sad.

1 thing I would have liked more to read is if we got more of Jude’s life when he was in college with his friends, more so of how met and got along.

And as much as I loved this book I do not have it in me to ever read it again. 😭

A Little Life. 6/5 ⭐ Stars

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The prose, the reader, the story, the character development, the relationships, the love, the tragedy. Everything was so devastatingly sad, yet massively overwhelmingly beautiful and human and hopeful. The only way it could end, in the end. The most engaging, mystifying and impactful book I have ever read. A masterpiece.

Life changing

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Beautifully written story that reminds you how much easier it is to believe the bad & not the good. Bad things happen to good people. Not everyone gets a fairytale. The writing of different character perspectives is amazing. It weaves through years, of a life seamlessly. A life of this much pain is hard to imagine, this book portrays it so intensely.

The Intensity

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It just kept getting sadder. 5 stars because it was written beautifully and Matt Bomer has a great voice.

Devastating

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I’ve just finished A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (audio book read by Matt Bomer).
Man that was tough. What a beautifully written, tragically sad story. It will take me a while to process.
Highly recommended.

The perfect meeting point of pain, love, trust and tragedy.

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Wow, one of the most beautiful works of literature I have encountered. Albeit sad, albeit challenging to listen to, this story is one of the most power writings.
Confronting yet beautiful

Confronting, yet beautiful

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Can’t finish it. Too long and too dreadful. It’s a female version of male stories. So much pain and no enjoyment. If you want to get depressed, you may like it.

Dreadful

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Trauma never ending. Transformed into a brilliant lawyer. Friends with little in commen but equally brilliant. Hard to believe. Hard to listen to. Well performed though.

never ending trauma

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Just very long and depressing I enjoyed it at the beginning but by the end I found it to be dragging on.

Depressing drag

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.