Where to start....this book is unlike anything I've ever read. The writing was beautiful, sometimes hard to follow for me, sometimes hard to read due to content [TW for violence, cutting, depression, suicide, child molestation, mental illness] but touched me deeply. If you want a story with "teeth", with substance, with deep meaning, this is the one. This is a very character-driven book, so don't look for the plot to pull you along. You really have to WANT to read this book for all it's wonderful parts and all of it's hard parts. It's a story of friendship, of love, of tragedy. I'm tearing up even now writing this. I cried almost every day after the first 3 chapters were passed.

This is the story of four friends who met in college: Jude, Willem, Malcolm and JB. Most of the book revolves around Jude and his horrific childhood, and how that time continued to haunt him through his life and how it impacted his relationships in his life as an adult. So many times I just wanted to reach through the pages and hug Jude and stop his pain. Feeling you are unworthy of love, of friendship, of living.....is heartbreaking.

This is easily the most difficult and most depressing book I've ever read. You just want the pain Jude feels to stop. You think Willem is helping, but underneath, it is still there deep inside.

One of my favorite quotes:

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life