A little life audiobook follows the lives of four friends: Jude St. Francis, a disabled genius with a mysterious past; Willem Ragnarsson, a kind, handsome man aspiring to be an actor; Jean-Baptiste “JB” Marion, a quick-witted painter looking to make a name for himself in the art world; and Malcolm Irvine, an architect working at a prestigious firm.
A critically acclaimed bestseller recommendation: A little life audiobook
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college decide to make their way to New York, they are destitute, adrift, and buoyed only by their camaraderie and ambition. There’s Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, often vicious Brooklyn-born painter looking to break into the art world; Malcolm, a dissatisfied architect at a prestigious company; and Jude, the reclusive, bright, mysterious center of gravity.
Their connections develop and darken throughout the years, tainted by addiction, achievement, and pride. Their greatest challenge, each realizes, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator but an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a level of trauma that he will not only be unable to overcome—but will define his life forever.
A little life audiobook is devided into seven parts:
- I: Lispenard Street
- II: The Postman
- III: Vanities
- IV: The Axiom of Equality
- V: The Happy Years
- VI: Dear Comrade
- VII: Lispenard Street
One of the most takeaway from A little life audiobook is a better understanding of the long-term consequences of systemic childhood maltreatment. Jude, an orphan reared in a convent, is the first location in his cruel stations of the cross. He slashes himself. He slams his head on the walls. He burns himself on fire in one especially terrible scenario. Beyond that, he cannot trust anybody and does not believe he is deserving of love, despite the fact that as an adult, he receives only unconditional love. This is beyond aggravating for the people who adore him (not just J.B., Malcolm, and Willem, but Harold, his former law professor who, with his wife Julia, adopts Jude at the age of 30, and Andy, the most supportive physician on the globe). All of this is recounted in around one-third to one-half of the book.
A little life audiobook is both heartbreaking and beautifully written. Hanya Yanagihara is merciless in showing Jude’s anguish. She goes into depth about both his prior abuse and his current self-harm, her language so exact and piercing that it made me shake and, at times, sob. Yanagihara depicts Jude’s pain as well as his friendships with sensitivity. With eloquence and heart, she portrays the intricacies of human emotion, physical location, and change across time. She writes about some of the most heinous, heinous acts of cruelty without sentimentalizing the violence or making the characters’ emotions mawkish.
Trauma is trauma. And, while we may all struggle for recovery, it is possible that it will never arrive. Sometimes all we can do is behave with whatever kindness we have left and hope that it may bring even a sliver of light into the darkness. Don’t miss out A little life audiobook today on Free Audiobooks Online!
More audiobooks for you:
