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book details / updated June 22, 2026

A Little Life

by Hanya Yanagihara

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Be warned before you start: A Little Life is one of the most discussed "devastating" reads in modern literary fiction, and readers are split between calling it the best book they've ever finished and not finishing it at all. At 736 pages, it rewards patience and a strong stomach more than plot momentum.

Cover of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.

why track this in moth

Given how often readers say they need breaks from this one, Moth's reading streaks and notes are built for exactly this kind of slow, heavy book you pick up and put down over weeks.

Book facts

Genre
English & College Success, English, Fiction
Publisher
Random House Digital Inc.
Published
March 10, 2015
Pages
736
Reading time
14 hr 37 min · ~35 nights at 25 min/day in Moth
ISBN
9780385539265
Language
English

Publisher's summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates, broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition, as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.

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