We should be telling them they are not alone in their suffering, and help them find ways to cope with their illnesses and traumas. We should not be telling “broken” people it’s okay to die. The implication that some people are too broken to help and we should just let them die is so, so harmful, and in no way does it help to eradicate the stigma against mental illness in this country.

The real deal breaker for me was when I paused midway through the novel to read an interview where Yanagihara stated her criticism of psychiatry as a way to treat mental illness. Do I think it’s likely that an entire abbey full of Franciscans (the most peaceable and loving sect in Catholicism) would not only participate in child molestation, but condone it almost openly? Hell no.

Yes, there are bad priests in the Catholic church. Instead, these larger than life events are made to seem trite and commonplace. Everything is over the top, but stated in such bald and beautiful prose that it doesn’t feel that way at the time. She also stated in several other interviews her desire to write a character so broken he couldn’t be fixed, which she accomplishes in her protagonist Jude. Some have called this a melodrama, and that seems accurate.

Other people have criticized more articulately the implications of the way Yanagihara treats her gay characters, who exist seemingly only to suffer (while paradoxically others have praised it as the great gay novel). There is a lot more that I could say about this book but I don’t think I have enough time or space. Nothing in life is positive, there is only human suffering, true connection is impossible, predators will always find and ruin truly good people, everything is evil, the people who love you are not enough to save you, and your happiness will turn to ashes in your mouth. Yeah, let’s make art that will stain our souls!!!!!) ( Here’s a Vulture interview where she talks about the inspiration for writing the book to create a book version of ombré cloth, which if you’re not familiar, by the time you get to the end is pitch black. The long and short of it is that this book is nothing but misery porn, on purpose. Then I read a bunch of interviews by her and hated the book even more. The longer I read this book, the more I dreaded reading it, the worse my feelings got as I read, and the more I hated it for existing.

Unfortunately, the story she told was not worthy of it. Really, Hanya Yanagihara knows how to use language. I can see why many, many people like this book. And it started out so well! The writing is actually gorgeous.

A little life description