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A Little Life

The million-copy bestseller, shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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A Little Life

By: Hanya Yanagihara
Narrated by: Matt Bomer
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About this listen

Matt Bomer's heart-rending narration in this new audiobook edition offers a fresh and poignant listening experience of Hanya Yanagihara's timeless modern classic. Perfect if you're an A Little Life fan or a new listener.

'I'm not exaggerating when I say this novel challenged everything I thought I knew about love and friendship. It's one of those books that stays with you forever' – Dua Lipa

The million-copy bestseller, Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, by the author of To Paradise, is an immensely powerful and heartbreaking novel of brotherly love and the limits of human endurance.

Winner of Fiction of the Year at the British Book Awards
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize
Finalist for the US National Book Award for Fiction

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cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity.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

'Yanagihara takes you so deeply into the lives and minds of these characters that you struggle to leave them behind' – The Times

Read by Golden Globe winner and star of Fellow Travellers, Matt Bomer.

'Matt Bomer’s narration brings a steady and thoughtful presence to an emotionally intense novel . . . His ability to balance the novel’s dark themes with its moments of warmth ensures a compelling listening experience' – AudioFile Magazine

 Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Urban Emotionally Gripping Heartfelt Tear-jerking Fiction

Critic reviews

A singularly profound and moving work . . . It's not often that you read a book of this length and find yourself thinking "I wish it was longer" but Yanagihara takes you so deeply into the lives and minds of these characters that you struggle to leave them behind
A book unlike any other . . . A devastating read that will leave your heart, like the Grinch's, a few sizes larger
Exquisite . . . The book shifts from a generational portrait to something darker and more tender: an examination of the depths of human cruelty, counterbalanced by the restorative powers of friendship
[A] wholly immersive unforgettable read . . . You won't stop reading. And it's a novel that changes you
Utterly compelling . . . quite an extraordinary novel. It is impossible to put down . . . And it is almost impossible to forget
Hypnotic . . . An intimate, operatic friendship between four men
A Little Life is unlike anything else out there. Over the top, beyond the pale and quite simply unforgettable
Piercing . . . [Yanagihara is] an author with the talent to interrogate the basest and most beautiful extremes of human behaviour with sustained, bruising intensity
Capacious and consuming . . . Immersive
Beautiful
Remarkable. . . . An epic study of trauma and friendship written with such intelligence and depth of perception that it will be one of the benchmarks against which all other novels that broach those subjects (and they are legion) will be measured
Astonishing
Deeply moving . . . A wrenching portrait of the enduring grace of friendship
Affecting and transcendent
All stars
Most relevant
One of my favourite audiobooks. I’ve listened to it twice after finishing the book because I got so attached to the characters and Jude, and the performance made it more emotional and real

Amazing performance

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Heartbreaking story that left not being able to put down the book or pause the audible. Each character was written so delicately you felt as though you had lived all these years with them.

Beautifully written story and characters

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Throughout this naration I kept on thinking about the author. What she must have experienced or seen and felt in her life to write about so much horror and pain and in so much detail.
It is beautifully written, in spite of the constantly repeated ‚I‘m so sorry…‘ said by almost every person in the novel over and over again.
Having said that, this was very thought provoking. How do we all fit into each others lives , how do we handle triggering situations? You can learn quite a bit about yourself between these pages, if you are self reflecting enough.

I‘m not sure what to think about this book .

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The story of A Little Life is a challenging one. It is full of deep and traumatic subjects described sometimes graphically, and sometimes just devastatingly alluded to.

The protagonist, Jude, is a frustrating character; hard to like on his own merit, but made likeable by the relationships of those around him who love him even as he pushes them away for reasons he explains to so few of them.

It is through the weaving of these characters that the story becomes so compelling, and each is so deeply written, given a rich backstory complete with mistakes ranging from innately human to idiotic to destructive and devastating.

As an Audiobook, Matt Bomer's reading is FLAWLESS, adding tone and nuance; characterisation which enhances the story, without detracting from the source material and making it a one man drama. He provides a pace and charm which not all narrators would be able to achieve.

it is a long listen, and I would not advise listening to it without headphones if there are children, or those of a sensitive disposition around, but if you are looking for something that will immerse and move you, but also shake and give you questions, this is a very good use of an Audible credit

completely immersive

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If you only ever listen to one audio book, listen to this one - you will not be disappointed

One of the best books ever, absolutely gut wrenching

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