I can't even put into words how much I hated this book. ( )

An amazing book, but absolutely harrowing to read. I'll be mulling over this one for a long time. ( )

When my friends had spoken about how heartbreaking this book is, I had smiled and thought to myself that they were exaggerating. I typically don't cry from reading books or watching films, I think I cry more from songs than anything else but this book was as heartbreaking as they come. I had to stop reading it in public for fear of making a spectacle of myself.

This book tells of the story of Jude St. Francis, a man whose history of brutal abuse and trauma and betrayal from those who were meant to love and protect him has made him self-loathing and self-conscious, and the people in his life. I could compare this story to a great whirlpool of sadness and pain, where just as you think the clouds have cleared and there's now a patch of blue sky above you, the dark clouds thicken and you're drawn in again and again.

But to reduce this story to just a story of pain would be unjust, because there is friendship, there is love, there is perseverance and strength. The book is so well written that the emotions it stirs distract from how brilliantly Yanagihara has incorporated her research in Mathematics, Law, Art, Film, Architecture etc. so that it doesn't just serve as details to the story but are very much a part of the structure of the story.

One of the elements I loved from the story was the approach to adulthood. After Jude and his friends finish School and begin their careers, none of them takes the conventional path which is normally, marriage and parenthood. Instead they maintain a steady long-term friendship and have no children. At some point Malcolm, one of Jude's close friends, bemoans the lack of meaning in life because he doesn't have children to which Willem, Jude's closest friend and partner responds: '“I know my life’s meaningful because”—and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent for a moment before he continued—“because I’m a good friend. I love my friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy.”'

This I believe is the best book I've read this year so far, and although I don't see myself rereading it anytime soon because of how emotionally taxing it was, I am so glad I read it. ( )

I am more than three quarters of the way through this book and I have given myself the right to shelve it. I am not sure how many times "I'm sorry" appears in the novel. All I know is that I am now flinching every time I hear it. Unrelenting behaviour carried on through decades. The author has no problem telling us why people act the way they do but the characters themselves seem unable to do anything except mutter "I'm sorry" throughout all the seemingly non-ending years of friendship. The characters are trapped in a time warp literally (nothing happens in the world) and emotionally. The only development is the author's slow strip tease dance of the seven veils reveal of how many ways one of the characters has suffered. Trust me, there are many. So many. And so, I am sorry. Can't finish this. With friends like these, who needs enemies? ( )

So many other well written reviews … on the whole I did enjoy the book (although enjoy is not the right word), there are some great moments, brilliant descriptions, heart warming emotions, but as someone else has said, it is total “misery porn”.
To some extent it made me think of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, (is it the name ?!!), just when you thought things can’t possibly get any worse … they do ( )