Book Blog #343: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

 

Title: A Little Life

Author: Hanya Yanagihara

# of Pages: 914 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ

Rating: ★★★★☆

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cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity.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

Review: Only read this book if you want to be VERY sad. 

I went into this book blind; this cover of the "constipated-looking guy"(I now know he is not constipated) kept coming up in my feed, but that was about all I knew of the book. I didn't know that it would be so long and yet so addictive (in the "there's a horrible car crash but I can't look away" type of addictive). It's definitely not for the faint of heart - there's very graphic descriptions about SO many triggers (e.g. abuse, trauma, suicide).

Let's start with the good parts of A Little Life:

• Yanagihara is clearly a very capable, though provoking writer. The detailed dreamy descriptions of NY conjure a feeling of nostalgia in the reader that is clearly reflective of the characters feelings of starting their young adult lives in the city. Even though this aspect of her writing doesn't drive the plot forward, I appreciated the quality of the writing and how well it invokes the imagery of the setting. 
• I became very invested in the characters, especially Willem and Andy who are such selfless characters.
• I'm a huge sucker for stories about friendship (the turmoil of friendships being tested, the power of having supportive friends), and this book had SO much of this. 
• The story explores a lot of thought-provoking topics: What does it mean to live a meaningful life? What makes someone your parent, your partner, your friend? What is success, what is trauma, how do they define you?   
• It forces the reader to face the idea of growing old, outliving loved ones, or leaving loved ones behind. I consider an occasional reminder of potential loneliness and the inevitably of death to be a good thing. 
• It's a tear jerker (I was crying on and off through the last 20-30% of the book). 

And now the bad:

• BYOB - this is a 800+ page pity party for Jude, who doesn't seem to accept help despite being surrounded by generous, supportive people. 
• Fun drinking game: take a shot anytime a character apologizes. It felt like a majority of the dialogue was some variant of "I'm so sorry." 
• The third person POV switching was actually not too bad in this book (although it was mildly annoying when Yanagihara only uses pronouns, and the reader has to use process of elimination to figure out which male character's POV it is). However, there are a few random chapters from the FIRST PERSON POV where you also have to deduce who's POV it is - it's so random and unnecessary.
• It's way too long. At around 70% through, I couldn't believe this book wasn't over yet and wanted Yanagihara to cut the fluff and get to finishing the story. With the POV switching, there's a lot of repetition of events that could have been organized more efficiently. 
• The story is truly slice of life - characters that don't hold much importance will be randomly introduced as if the reader should already know who they are. Some character get a long drawn out detailing of their background, and then fade into into the background as they become less important to Jude. 
• The lack of diversity amongst the characters in terms of success made this story less realistic. Yes many of them know each other from college, but for so many people in the arts to succeed at such a major scale is just unbelievable. 
• There's some shaky messaging on trauma. Some may interpret it as "trauma will never be forgotten, and the only true escape is death" which may give people that suicide is the best option.
• It's a tear jerker (imagine crying for hundreds of pages, drink water folks).

Yes, I'd recommend this book BUT be prepared for what you're getting yourself into. I felt the sadness from this book even when I was not directly reading it (it's a HUGE downer if you couldn't already tell), so don't read this during a time when it'll affect your enjoyment of other things going on in life. 

Book Blog #342: Th1rt3en by Steve Cavanagh

 

Title: Th1rt3en

Author: Steve Cavanagh

# of Pages: 323 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Thriller, Mystery

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: They were Hollywood's hottest power couple. They had the world at their feet. Now one of them is dead and Hollywood star Robert Solomon is charged with the brutal murder of his beautiful wife. This is the celebrity murder trial of the century and the defence want one man on their team: con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn. All the evidence points to Robert's guilt, but as the trial begins a series of sinister incidents in the court room start to raise doubts in Eddie's mind. What if there's more than one actor in the courtroom? What if the killer isn't on trial? What if the killer is on the jury?

Review: Yes, this is the 4th book in the series. No, it's not a problem to read it as a standalone book. 

Cavanagh chosen genre and style is very similar to John Grisham books, so fans of Grisham's should definitely give Cavanagh's Eddie Flynn series a shot. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of Grisham's, so I was sitting at a 2 star rating for Th1rt3en while reading the beginning 2/3's of the book. 

The prose is pretty simple and therefore very accessible to a broad audience (apparently the average reading level in the US is at a 7th grade level). The protagonist Eddie Flynn is some ex-con artist (a bad boy) who's turned into a defense lawyer who has high moral standards on only saving the innocent from wrongful sentencing (savior). His strong sense of duty toward this greater good might be breaking apart his family, but it's something that's framed as something the reader should sympathize with Flynn for rather than his wife that is upset with his dangerous lifestyle. I'm imagining this is some idealization of a man FOR men - clearly not something I'm the target audience for. Definitely was not a fan of reading about these types of people nor the simplistic writing style. Especially since I read Miracle Creek just before this, I was settling this book on the two star rating because I liked the style so much less that that book (which I also gave 3 stars). 

The premise of having a serial killer on the jury is what drew me into reading this book (and that I heard it's trending on BookTok). I'm used to mystery's being a bit thrilling due to the nature of the genre, but I wasn't expecting it to be as much of a thriller as it was. Yes there are descriptions of the murders and what is done to the bodies (not unexpected), but Cavanagh also incorporated descriptions about the villains' (evil) facial expressions and built suspense when a character is near these villainous characters that made it a bit more of a thriller than others of this genre. 

It was the last third of the book that ultimately made me decide to give this book 3 stars. Every mystery has at least one "reveal", and I was caught completely off guard by this book's reveal. I had to re-read the paragraph a few times to see if I was understanding what happened correctly, it was so unexpected. In retrospective, it made me appreciate how the author laid out the story to deceive the reader, even if I didn't like the style it was written in. Therefore, and extra star was granted. 

I would recommend this book to people who already know they like the style and genre of Grisham's books. For the twist, I don't regret reading this book, but it's definitely not my top choice. I won't be reading any other books in this series. 

Book Blog #341: Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

 

Title: Miracle Creek

Author: Angie Kim

# of Pages: 398 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Mystery

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: In rural Miracle Creek, Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine. A pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives,” it's also a repository of hopes and dreams: the dream of a mom that her child can be like other kids; the dream of a young doctor desperate to cure his infertility and save his marriage; the dream of the Yoos themselves, Korean immigrants who have come to the United States so their teenage daughter can have a better life. When the oxygen chamber mysteriously explodes, killing two people, all these dreams shatter with it, and the ensuing murder trial uncovers imaginable secrets and lies.

Review: It's almost cheating to write a mystery because the reader is more than likely going to have a difficult time putting the book down. Even poorly written mysteries have had a history of taking over my day, my weekend because I NEED to figure out who dunnit. 

That being said, Miracle Creek somehow managed to miss this gripping quality. I didn't even mind the third person POV switching too much (the format is popular for the "peeling the onion" types of courthouse mysteries where different perspectives are necessary to build the full picture). There was something about how the character building and the story telling seemed to drag on, and the time skipping between the past and the present was annoying rather than suspenseful. 

What put me off the most was how Kim chose to write hints that the SOMETHING had happened, strongly indicating that some characters knew about some critical events, but stopped short of telling from the reader what actually happened until later in the story, in the name of suspense. It made the mystery aspect feel forced rather than letting letting the narratives from the courthouse and character interactions conjure the air of mystery themselves. 

A part that I did enjoy was how Miracle Creek explores parenthood of kids with likely lifelong conditions through the HBOT patients. This was the first time I've read about HBOT, and I learned a lot more than I expected about how some parents approach their children's typically "incurable" conditions. 

The Yoo family's immigration experience into the US made this book stand out amongst other court house mysteries. Immigrating from the US is explored from all angles within the family (father, mother, and child) and how they all face unique challenges in adjusting to a new culture and how pursuing the American dream inevitably changes the family dynamic. In particular, Young's growth in how she views Pak and his role as a patriarch of the family makes me really appreciate her as a character.

Overall, this book was...okay - there are some good parts, and there's nothing glaringly wrong with the book. But when I finished reading, that's what I felt about the book: it's "just okay."