One of the most haunting characters in contemporary fiction.
I have thought carefully about whether to give this four or five stars and I am settling on four, for this reason: Yanagihara's accumulation of trauma crosses from harrowing into something closer to operatic, and there are passages in the second half where I felt manipulated rather than moved. That is a meaningful distinction. What I cannot dispute is that Jude St Francis is one of the most haunting characters in contemporary fiction and that the friendship at the novel's centre is rendered with rare delicacy. Four stars as a novel; perhaps five as an experience.