A Little Life

by Hanya Yanagihara
Where to begin. This is a long novel at 720 pages. It follows the lives of 4 students who meet at college in their late teens and remain friends through the rest of their lives.
However, it soon becomes evident that the story is really about the elusive Jude who has been severely abused as a child and has been left disabled physically, and mentally scarred as a result.
The story of his life is told in a series of flashbacks that are very detailed and harrowing to read. At one point I had to put the book down for three days and gather my courage to pick it up again.
On many levels this book should not work.
1. It is set in a non determined time frame. It covers five decades and yet they all feel like the present.
2. There is very little contextualisation given. No real life figures or events to allow us to tie the story down.
3. Is it possible that somebody as damaged as Jude could rise to the top of a top flight law firm in New York. If the answer is no then much of the violence depicted becomes gratuitous doesn't it.
4. Could four college friends all rise to very top of their field (art, architecture, acting and law) and still be friends.
5. Would an orthopaedic surgeon take on the case of somebody metodically cutting themselves without referring them to other health professionals.

However, even allowing for the points above this is a gripping novel that raises all sorts of debate and drives you on to the end in a compelling fashion. 9/10

The Buried Giant

by Kazuo Ishiguro
This book is set in medieval England in a land where peoples memories are being lost and the land is populated by giants and dragons and ogres. A definite departure from Remains of the Day etc but still beautifully told. It is not a genre I particularly like but I did enjoy this. 8/10

A year of Marvellous Ways

by Sarah Winman
I loved this book. The language was poetic and magical just as the story itself is.
It is set in Cornwall and London just after the second world war and tells the story of an old cornish woman and her meeting with a young London man who has returned belatedly from the war in France. 10/10

The Green Road

by Ann Enright
A story of Irish families which Enright does well, and the first of the 2015 Man Booker crop I have read. This tells the stories of four siblings, their lives brought to us in vignettes from the different decades between the 1970's and today. The stories are great and the family have a final get together one christmas when their mother decides to sell the house.
I enjoyed the book up until the end when it sort of fizzled out, but as a master of telling stories about ordinary people in an engaging way, this is a good book. 7/10

The Black Ice

by Michael Connelly
The second book in the Harry Bosch series. We get a bit more background on Harry but I found this not as good as the Black Echo. There was a bit more, Harry as superman, rather than flawed cop trying to get through. It was still a good read focused around a drug gang operating between Mexico and LA. 6/10