Yanagihara’s book is not for the faint of heart, not merely owing to its 814 pages (paperback edition), but for the unyielding, intimate depravity, bereavement, pain, bitterness, longing, and suffering throughout. And yet, like life itself, it felt worth enduring, as it were, for the deeper richness that is life in all its forms — the better components, too.

Book Review: A Little Life