This book is a slow painful wail from start to the ending 816 pages later. I cry during books, but during this one I ugly cried several times over, sometimes for page after page.

Jude is the main character and his past is a secret that everyone knows not to ask about. The book starts when Jude and his three friends, Willem, JB, and Malcom are in college. The book follows them through addictions, relationships, careers, fights and friendships, and slowly you learn the details of Jude’s secret past. With each revelation questions are answered but the reader’s faith in humanity is both crushed and buoyed. Despite the horrific events that left him in pain and disabled, his friends love him, revealing to him a self he never could have dreamed of imagining, but each revelation of love is mournful and met with a distrust.

The characters were vivid and textured, the friendships full of earnest loyalty, the premise one that just wrecks your heart. I loved it!

Comparable to: All the Colors of the Dark and Demon Copperhead

Warnings: content includes physical, sexual, and verbal abuse, neglect, self harm, and suicide.