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A Little Life

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cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity.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

©2015 Hanya Yanagihara (P)2025 Penguin Random House LLC
Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Urban Emotionally Gripping Heartfelt Fiction

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What listeners say about A Little Life

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Heartbreaking Lovestory

I think this book will forever stay in my heart. I love the people in this so much. It takes the whole book to get to know Jude, so dont give up, if you struggle in the begining, it will be worth it in the end.

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Emotional, Wonderful

The character development and the love that grows for each of them is incredible. I’ve not listened to anything like it before, truly heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time.

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Wow. Shocking.

Harrowing but sensitive and extremely well written and narrated . A huge tome and one that will stay with me- whether I want it to or not!

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Where do I start...?

What an outstanding, moving, emotional, eye opener of a book. I'm not crying!! You are!!

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Such an awful, wonderful , thought provoking read

So gripped and at times incredibly hard but impossible not to continue. The resilience and humanity shone through. Will stay with me for a long time, but this is incredibly sad and challenging in places. Not for the faint hearted.

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    3 out of 5 stars

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

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.

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completely immersive

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

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Seriously depressing

Just hoping this book wasn’t based on a true story, but then again if it wasn’t why would anyone write something so depressing?

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