#luke and malcom my beloved

[pmreaper]

fellas is it gay to have an enemy. is it gay to do your worst because you're afraid you don't have what it takes to be good like your enemy does. is it gay to spend years waiting on your enemy to be a better person even if there's no sign that moment will ever come. fellas

[nicoscowboyhat]

A rant about the Riordaverse fandom and its weird opinions on villains

This has been getting on my nerves for a while, so. Here we are I guess.

Most people in the Riordanverse fandom have this idea that if you like a villain you must excuse their actions as well. This is simply not true.

“B-but they’re bad people! They did bad things! How can you like them?” Of course they’re bad people. That’s the point. They’re villains. Sometimes villains are interesting, or funny, or tragic in a way that people enjoy. People have every right to say that they like that character.

Luke for example. Luke sucks, he’s a bad person and in no way do I disagree that he’s a bad person, nor do I excuse his actions on any level. But he’s an interesting character. He’s a villain that you can empathize with, and most of the fandom even agrees with some of his ideas. He executed those ideas in the only way he could find how, and ultimately it was the wrong decision. Everyone knows that. Nobody is denying it. Stop acting like they are.

“At least Luke has a personality though. Octavian is 2D as hell. There’s no appeal.” You’re right, Octavian barely has a personality and no backstory. There’s no reason to like him... until you realize that up until The Hidden Oracle, Will was the same way. Everyone loved him regardless. Cecil and Lou Ellen appear for a chapter or so and then never again. People love them. The Stoll brothers, Malcom, Paolo, Harley, Katie, and Miranda are all 2 dimensional characters with no backstory and little to no character development and people practically worship the ground they walk on. Octavian is also clueless and quick to anger, which makes for some pretty funny scenes. Let people laugh at the teddy bear strangler. 

Another thing I would like to point out is that some villains are some of the most beloved characters in certain fandoms. Do you think people who like Darth Vader excuse mass murder and blowing up planets? Or people who like Bo-Katan excuse war crimes and terrorism? Come on now. 

I know you all have critical thinking skills. Please use them. 

[lady-o-ren]

THE HUNGER OF MY HEART

//PROLOGUE// //PART ONE// PART TWO

PART THREE

For easier reading here’s the link for ao3 (X)

Jamie stepped into the Lallybroch stables and whistled melodically through his teeth. A wide-browed grey horse poked his head out from the corner stall, hitching his ears forward as he blew excitedly through his nostrils.

"Cobhar, ciamar a tha thu?" Said Jamie fondly, firmly patting the long dappled neck of the horse and scratching behind his ears. "Di' ye miss me, my wee laddie?"

Nothing was wee about Cobhar. He was a good-tempered, but spirited 14-hand gelding that had been the first foal that Jamie's father let him care for when he was a lad, still mourning his mother and needing distraction.

Cobhar's big head came down and mouthed affectionately at Jamie's curls then cheeks in greeting, as he always had done, then descended down to his knuckles, eager for the sweet treat he could smell hiding in his palm. 

"Och, ye miss being spoilt is all then? Didn'a think of me once while I was gone, di' ye?" 

Cobhar huffed impatiently and nudged his head against Jamie's chest, nibbling at the buttons, while swishing his dirt-blonde tail side to side.

"A'right, laddie," Jamie chuckled, patting him again. "Here ye go. No need to knock me over." The stallion's soft velvet lips plucked the whole apple from out his opened palm and devoured it in one loud and juicy crunch.

"Fattening auld Cobhar a'ready, Jamie?"

Jamie grinned ear to ear as he looked aside to see his best friend, and now brother-in-law, Ian, amble up beside him. He was tall and whipcord lean and strong, with an honest, good-natured face about him that had captured his sister, Jenny's heart when they were naught but bairns.

"Ye're one to talk, Ian. My sister didn'a get big as a house on her own, di' she?" 

Face a rich blush, Ian laughed and bashfully scratched his nose, crooked from when Jamie broke it years before, having found him and Jenny in the most compromising of ways.

"Still a wee shite, Fraser. And still redder than a roosters arse," said Ian, as he playfully smacked the back of Jamie's head.

As had everyone else in the family since he arrived back home. His uncle's, aunties and brutally by his beloved godfather, Murtagh, for being away from Lallybroch for so long. But the real blackening had come from Jenny, a feat for a pregnant woman who had once been no bigger than his thumb. Thank Christ, he had a skull made of solid stone (though as predicted she had embraced soon after and kissed him more than what was decent for a sister to).

Rubbing the multitude of throbbing black and blue bumps on his head (but after having given Ian a hard punch to his shoulder), Jamie spotted what looked to be an envelope under his brother-in-law's arm.

"Plan on feeling the bills to the white sow, Ian?"

Ian looked at him quizzically before making an "O" with his mouth and pulled the envelope out.

"It came yesterday, before you di'," said Ian, handing it over to Jamie, who curiously flipped it over.

It was a letter actually. He grinned, almost laughing, as it was addressed to James Alexander Malcom Mackenzie Fraser and had been tied thoughtfully with twine and a sprig of greenery embedded (accidentally?) in its bow that he brushed a blunt forefinger to.

It was from Claire.

Jamie glanced up to see Ian smirking at him and felt his ears blush hot.

"Ye're damn lucky I saw that before yer sister di'. She'd be holding it up to the light and steaming the seams open."

"She'd do no such thing," Jamie retorted, with a glint of humor in his eyes. "Yer wife would tear it open wi' her teeth and wave it in my face."

"That she would," Ian agreed with a chest shaking chuckle. "But our lass is a bloodhound and will find out sooner than not about the puir lass that ye've set yer heart upon."

The last was said almost in question. A hope that maybe Jamie had found a way to balm his wearied heart, knowing that his travels were not just a simple bout of wanderlust and the outlandish reason why. He had the look of a man now awakened, as if he'd been reborn. Something Ian himself had experienced the day Janet Fraser gave him his first kiss at the tender age of six and had never recovered from.

Nor had his nose.

Jamie met Ian's hazel eyed gaze.

"Her name's Claire," he beamed, not bothering to hide the emotion in his voice that rivaled the reverence of a prayer to the creator above. "I met her in London a week ago. Spent every second I could wi' her."

And leaving the woman of his dreams had been like having his heart cleaved in two.

"Then you'll have to write to me," Claire had said, beneath her gates woven green with ivy, having clasped her fingers to his, while her other hand held his arm as if to draw him back to her marvelous world.

"Letters, ye mean?" He gulped, having felt himself sway to her power.

She nodded. "I prefer it. I can't stand the ringing and pinging of a telephone. Will you, Jamie?" Her voice had sounded unsure as if it were indeed possible he could ever refuse her. 

"Who do I address it to?" He had smiled, while grazing a tentative thumb to the back of her palm.  "The funny house no one can see at the end of nowhere street?"

"You're a smart one." She pulled her hand away to tap his nose but had let her caress linger innocently, cluelessly, down his ginger stubbled cheek as he shivered with desire, wanting to kiss the base of her thumb, count her freckles with his mouth. "Address it to this empty lot and your letter will find me. Just don't be forever." 

Jamie had pressed his hand over hers, not knowing if he could ever let her go, feeling his breath stitch tight.

"Then until I see ye again, Sassenach."

She glowed at the name he'd given her the day they'd met. Had told him before it suited her better than even her given one.

Jamie hadn't agreed with that at all and wanted to tell her what Claire was in the Ghàidhlig.

One day he would.

Perhaps strung together with the phrase stirring in his heart.

Tha gaol agam ort

But apparently a day had been far too long for her.

"I think she's the one," Jamie continued on, in almost startling disbelief as he grinned like the lovesick fool he was. "The one that's been calling for me all these years." 

"Christ, man! She's real?!" Ian gripped his shoulder, matching his excitement. "Should we be expecting yer Claire for hogmanay with a wee one of yer own?"

Before Jamie could stutter a heart racing answer to that query, the two were interrupted by Jenny hollering for them. 

“D’ye two want yer dinner, or shall I feed it to the dogs!?” 

Said dogs, Luke and Elphin, Mars and auld Bran, howled in answer while Jamie groaned at his sister's impeccable timing.

Ian slapped his back though and gave his dearest friend and bràthair an encouraging smile and waggle of his dark brows. "Read the damn letter, man. I'll take care of yer sister. Just remember when yer wean's born to name him after me, aye?" 

After watching Ian depart with a wink, Jamie threw a long leg over Cobhar's stall door (shushing the nosey beast with a promise of sugar cubes) and settled himself low in the hay. 

After pocketing the bit of green to his breast pocket with a delicate hand, he carefully untied the twine and opened Claire's letter. The sweet fragrance of elderflowers and chamomile kissed the page where a simple request was written that had Jamie hopping over the stall door and running towards Lallybroch, with his pack of dogs yapping at his heels.

My Dear Jamie,

At the end of the week I'll be in Edinburgh.

Join me?

//

"Are ye ever going to tell me what's in this thing, Sassenach?"

Up and down the winding streets of Edinburgh, past the many sloping buildings and cafes and bitty book shops stacked beside one another, Jamie had been carrying a heavy and ornate wooden chest for Claire as she walked ahead of him, looking for the shop to deliver it to.  

She glanced over her shoulder at him and her young apprentice, Elias, beside him, who'd taken quite a shine to the older Scotsman. He too had been tasked with carrying a package. It was strapped to his back, a long leather cylinder that could've held anything from mundane documents to a treasure map. Jamie wasn't sure at all.

"It's not for me to say. Besides it would only worry your dreams." 

"That doesna make me feel any better," Jamie murmured, staring warily at what he held in his arms which amused Claire greatly enough to bite her posey lush lips from laughing.

"Then pretend it's a cake box."

Elias snorted, catching Jamie's attention.

"Ye ken what's in this thing don't ye, mo charaid?" 

"Aye - I mean yes. But -" Elias flicked his round eyes to his mistress's straight back then cupped his hand to his round cheek. "I'll tell you later. It's downright awful and I nearly lost my -" 

"You know I can hear you both? I'm not that old."

"And how old is that?" Jamie asked half teasing, half with genuine curiosity, while Elias pinked, snorting loudly once more.

Claire stopped in her tracks and spun on her heels, cutting a look at the younger lad who quickly cowered behind the much taller man.

"I'm old enough to remember Queen Victoria but not the Bonnie Prince. Is that enough for you?" She replied flatly, crossing her arms.

Jamie went a bit bug-eyed, mentally counting the decades since the little Queen's reign. Then his wide mouth twitched.

"And ye say ye're no' a witch?" 

Claire rolled her eyes and continued walking but a smile had peeked on her lips that encouraged Jamie to tease her more.

"Ye ken," he began, walking beside her now and shifting the weight of the chest as he did so. "There are auld highland tales that say curls wild as yers are the mark of a Ban-druidh, and that the crows favor them to make their nests."

She tugged at her dark locks and watched as they bounced back on release with utter disdain written on her face.

"They're more of a tumbleweed curse if you ask me," she frowned, making Jamie quickly regret his words.

"I didna mean it that way, Sassenach. Truly. Yer curls are lovely. They're like the ripples in a burn when the rain and leaves fall upon it. Luminous as the sky rich in twilight.  And yer eyes, Christ, they're. . ." 

Jamie's voice trailed off when he realized they'd stopped walking and had the wide-eyed attention of both Elias and Claire. 

As well as everyone else on the street alongside them. 

How loudly had he been blabbering?

But then a smile of pure delight broke across Claire's face, reflecting brightly in her eyes, as she tucked an errant curl behind her ear, only for another far more impetuous to take its place.

"How has no one snatched up a charmer like you, Jamie?"

One had. A very oblivious one.

Jamie sheepishly shrugged and found unparalleled interest in the engravings of the wooden box he carried as his face blazed the very color of his beating heart. He looked very much like a schoolboy.

Unnoticed by them though was dear Elias, whose sea-grey eyes darted between them both, grinning sweet as pie.

Walking down another street, Claire finally announced they had arrived, and the men, sore footed and muscle strained, sighed in relief. 

The shop exterior was hard wood and painted coal black while the door was a dark and flaking green. And written in gold on the long framed window beside the door, Jamie read to himself

THE WITHERED BONE 

Potions // Trinkets // Antiques

 & 

The Finest Biscuits This Side of the Black Realm

"Biscuits?" Jamie murmured, knotting his brow. "What kind of shop is this? Like yers, Sassenach?"

"Not necessarily," she said, hand hesitant on the brass doorknob. "For one it's in plain sight. But if you want to call anyone a witch the three who own this place would fit the bill. I think they even have a cauldron."

"They do. I saw it with - uh, nevermind,"  Elias choked at the last, blushing beet red.

Claire arched her brow. "Now Elias -" 

"I know, ma'am," he drawled, fiddling with the strap over his chest. "Stay away from Ms. Annalise and keep to your side."

"And Jamie -"

He looked at her smiling wryly. "Ms. Annalise?"

"Shut up," she said, playfully swatting his arm. "You stay at the front of the shop. There's nothing there that can bite your nose off."

Claire then ushered them both through the door.

Inside, it was a cluttered jumble of anything and everything. An elaborate display of lost treasures from Africa to France and most prominently the Jacobite resistance in all its doomed glory. There was an array of vintage costume jewelry, stacked stop tables against the walls and racks of overflowing clothing a group of young girls were pawing through, where one in particular, all flaxen hair and big doe eyes, was swaying to the melancholy chords of a record that crackled softly in the background.

What makes you think love will end?

When you know that my whole life depends 

On you

It was a tune Jamie remembered his parents dancing to. His mother had been wrapped in his father's arms as he nuzzled her cheek, softly mouthing the words against her skin. The young girl hummed it too as she gazed dreamily at a dress in her hands.

Overhead hung a simple iron chandelier that seemed to have been ripped straight from a castle's dungeon, dripping hot candle wax to a metal bowl placed on the hardwood floors. One burning drop fell down Jamie's neck as he walked beneath them, that had him cursing underbreath as he scrunched his shoulders and knocked his knee into a table, rattling the knickknacks.

"Ye break it ye buy it, laddie," came a voice from the front of the shop. "I'll take cash and the blood of yer first born."

"Oh, Geilie," said Claire and crossed over to the counter, leaning over the glass display of dirks and sgian dhu (with a cookie jar atop) to kiss a rather wicked to the bone looking redhead's cheek. "You are terrible." 

"It wasn'a as if I lied," Geilie snickered, turning her attention first to young Elias who flinched under her unnerving gaze then to Jamie, blatantly raking over his physique before Claire stepped into her view.

"Who's the clumsy stag ye've brought wi' ye, Claire?"

"A friend who I very much like as he is. No twitching your nose or feeding him your biscuits." She then mumbled to Jamie at her shoulder. "Hansel and Gretel, remember?" 

"Ye're never any fun," she pouted, then pointed her chin. "Have ye a name, stag?" 

"Jamie," he replied simply, not at all trusting the unsettling woman before him with more than that.

"Weel then, Jamie, ye can leave that in the corner there and you," she looked at Elias with a devilish grin as she propped her chin on her hand and drummed her fingers to her cheek. "Louise will be waiting downstairs fer ye, Annalise too. But ye kent that aye?"

While the young lad experienced a sudden shortness of breath, Jamie set the delivery down and rather dumbly asked, "What's downstairs?" 

Geilie's eyes shimmered like the feral beast whose blood she probably bathed in, chilling Jamie down to his bones.

"Why? Are ye needin' an ill-wish like the wee lasses over there." She gestured over to the girls taking their leave. "Mebbe something far more entertaining and lethal like a summoning? Those require a blood sacrifice, ken. Nothing so tender as yer sweet lass here wi' her trade of bits and bobs.

She wasn't kidding. 

Jamie glanced at the doorway that led downstairs, carved with cabbalistic symbols. A faint whiff of bitter herbs wafted through a pigeon blood red curtain that shadowed it, mingling with a coppery tang he could taste on his tongue, tainting the air. It churned his wame with sick.

"Or are ye wantin' - Oh!" She quickly shot a strange and startled look over to Claire.

"Leave him be, Geilie," Claire chided, unaware of the questions in her sometimes friend's eyes as she threw all her attention on Jamie.

"We'll only be a minute," she assured him with a hand running down his arm, sending a shock of steadying warmth through him that he knew came from someplace bewitching within her. "And don't worry about Geilie, she won't touch a hair on your head when she knows I can shrivel hers like a prune."

Jamie smiled at his own Ban-druidh. Must've whispered it too, to deserve the pinch she gave him before leaving  with Elias downstairs to the witch's grisly lair.

"I ken what yer after, mo bhalaich," came Geilie's voice, softly speaking to him as if he were a friend. "I can see it festering in ye like hemlock, yer love fer the Sassenach."

Jamie nervously glanced over to the doorway. "I dinna ken what yer on about, woman." 

"Dinna bother hidin' it, no' like she can see it anyhow. She hasn't the heart fer it, ye see. Hers was taken by her old master, the wee frog, who lived in that house of hers before she di'. She hasn'a a clue where it is, doesn'a even ken it's missin', and wi'out it she canna love ye back."

"Why - Why should I believe you?"  Jamie asked haltingly, for his throat was being strangled by his heart, ripped from beneath his ribs.

"Why would I lie, ye puir wee fool? Save yerself, getaway, or that love ye carry will swallow ye whole, heart and soul and breath."

Only when she touched the tender spot on his chest did Jamie realize he was bent over the counter a hair's breadth away from the witch, close enough to see the harsh and earnest truth pooling in her eyes.

 Then she pushed him away. 

"All done," said Claire, coming through the curtain, and cast her gaze between the two in front of her.

"What have you two been doing?" She waved a finger at them both.

"Oh, a little talking is all. Nothing more," grinned Geilie, face a mask of perfect innocence.  

Claire hummed, believing otherwise and tried to make light of whatever she saw troubling Jamie's face. "You should know whatever Geilie told you, it's probably only half as bad or twice as worst,"  

"Och, I'm sure of it, Sassenach. Shall we go?" Jamie said hurriedly, not meeting her eye. Trying to forget what the witch had said. 

She slowly nodded, her face lined with concern, but tucked her slender arm through his and gave Geilie a half-hearted goodbye. Immediately,  Jamie felt the blood in his veins flow to his heart now beating in its proper place and air return to his lungs. 

But somewhere deep inside himself, Jamie could feel the beginnings of a rotting ache bloom and take root. He was already too far gone.

"You didn't eat the biscuits did you." 

He managed a weak chuckle and swallowed. "No lass." But then he swiveled his head. "Where's the wee lad?" 

In five seconds flat, Claire had Elias by his arm like a child, his face a burning fever red and eyes bowed to the ground with Ms. Annalise leaning at the doorway, a beguiling smile on her face.

No time is wasted that makes  two people friends

//

THANK YOU to everyone who reads and comments on this fic. You have no idea how much I appreciate it!!

!!MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Now Author Notes

*First off sorry for all the messy mistakes and eye gouging writing

*Thanks to @soinspiredbyyou/ @mo-nighean-rouge for help with the line tweaking "Perhaps strung together with the phrase stirring in his heart." Although hers was actually better "Perhaps preceded by a phrase stirring in his heart" but preceded sounded too smart and too good for my dummy words.

*The descriptions of Cobhar are from the book cause I don't know anything about horses.

*The song is Never My Love

*I may come back and fiddle with this chapter but I really wanted to get this done before Christmas.

*Next chapter will be the last

[itstandsforthesun]

A little life review//spoilers

Two disclaimers before I start this. First, I have never written a review before from either fear or pure laziness, so take me easy on this one (also English is only my second language). Second, this is my opinion, if you loved this book then cheers to you. At the end of the day you got a new favorite book and all I got is the sweet taste of indecision.

With that being said, let’s start. I didn’t hate this book, I didn’t love it even though I enjoyed a big part of it. Do I feel like it has the potential of becoming a new classic? Absolutely not. But let’s start with the beginning, the writing style. I don’t usually pay too much attention to this unless it is extremely good, but this time there were a couple of aspects that were nagging at me. It seemed really try-hard. Try-hard to sound deep, try-hard to sound poetic, try-hard to sound pretentious (that The Secret History good pretentious). The descriptions were at times way too long and unnecessary just like the phrases themselves. A sentence could go on for 5 lines and by the time you got to the end you were filled with so much information that you didn’t even know what was important to the scene at hand and what not.

I’m not saying that the writing style was complete rubbish, it had its charm at times and there were also a lot of quotes that I enjoyed throughout the book, some beautiful descriptions, but even those were spoiled from time to time with sentences that were just too long.

Now that we got the writing style out of the way, let’s move on to the plot. In this book’s case, there’s not much of it. Not that it bothered me, it reminded me of The Goldfinch, a book I loved. The main difference between this book and The Goldfinch though is that the length is not justified. A Little Life could have easily lost at least 200 pages and it would not have made a difference.  The plot got repetitive and to be honest quite tiring. I remember the joy with which I started this book, so curious to find out more about our mysterious Jude and then I remember my only thought approaching the end: “Is this over yet?”

The book was simply too long in my opinion and it had little to nothing on which I could get hooked. I was curious for the end, but not that curious. I knew there was going to be death, it was expected, but I will admit that I was not expecting the actual death count.

And speaking about death, let’s get to the characters, shall we? A Little Life was advertised as a novel about friendship that followed the lives of 4 ex-college roommates through the years. And while that’s true to some extent, more often than not we seem to be concentrating on only one of these 4, Jude St. Francis. And don’t get me wrong, I do get it. Jude is the one with the most baggage, with the most interesting life and back-story, but if that’s the case, at least tell us from the beginning that this is a story about Jude! Don’t advertise JB, Malcom and Willem as main characters when they are not really, not when you know who you really want to write about.

I’ll express my opinion on each of these characters individually now and I’m going to be starting with Malcom since he is the most neglected out of the 4. I get very angry when I think about Malcom and his “character development” throughout this book or the lack of it. We get this dude’s POV once in a 720 pages book! And he is called a main character! A main fucking character! And what’s even worse, when we see him, the only time we really see him, he is filled with indecision, about his future, about his job, about his sexuality, about living with his parents. You want to tell me that these things are not interesting enough to follow, to see how a character gets out of his own head and decides for himself what his own life is going to be? After his short POV in the beginning of the book (which also seemed a little like a cheap anticipation of Jude’s part of the story, like starting with these 3 not so important characters to get them out of the way) we never really find out how he solved all of his problems. We get mentions of him getting a new job, one that he is actually proud of, finding a girlfriend who also becomes his wife later on and moving out of his parent’s house. But we never get his thought process, what made him take attitude in the first place, how he figured out his sexuality. Malcom’s whole character comes off as lazy writing. The author didn’t seem to care enough about Malcom to give him a proper story. Why make him a main character then? Malcom in my opinion had a lot of potential as a character, his constant indecision, still present in the story even without his POV, would have offered great literary material, a great conversation starter on the indecisiveness of people. But no, Malcom had to be resumed to an episodical character who was more often mentioned than present only to feed into the book’s theme of friendship. We could also consider Malcom as an instrument in establishing the theme of loss also present in this book. Malcom was killed off along with Willem and Sophie (a character who spoke a total of 0 words in the entire book) for a purpose unknown to me. Let’s say Willem and Sophie died and Malcom lived, wouldn’t that have offered him an opportunity to be seen by us, really seen, again? The death of the two could have been followed by Malcom’s point of view along side Jude’s. The author could have used it as an introspection into Malcom’s life and all it represented up to this moment. His character could have been redeemed and we would have also gotten an emotional roller coaster that would have brought us to tears. This would have saved the character of Malcom for me and it would also have brought him justice. In the end, Malcom was just a wasted opportunity for me.

The next “main character” that I’m going to bring up is JB. In no way as neglected as Malcom, but also not getting as much screen time as Willem or Jude, JB is a pretty interesting character. Selfish, self-centered, “always politically correct” and susceptible to bad habits, JB seems to be anything but a hero. That’s what makes him fascinating to watch, he goes from incidents like making fun of Jude’s walk to painting his friends in magnificent lively colors. We get to explore both his admiration for his own person and his hatred. JB is a complex character, not necessary my favorite personality wise, but definitely my favorite building and development wise.

Moving on to Willem, the character that gets screen time because he is the love of our main character’s life. Maybe that was slightly exaggerated, but we’ve all been thinking it. Willem is a very likeable character, in the beginning he was actually my favorite, I’m not sure what happened along the way. It was probably the fact that the story was dragged out so much that I lost interest in most things. I thought Willem was a very kind soul who truly loved helping people and more importantly his friends. I prayed until the very last moment that the relationship with Jude would not happen though. On one hand it was because it was too predictable, I would have loved to see a pure friend love story since we don’t get much of those if any. Second of all, back to the point of friendship, this was advertised as a story about 4 friends, not about 2 friends who fall in love with each other and then 2 others who are only half relevant. I wanted to be surprised by a story in which nobody fell in love with their best friend, where the kind friend always took special care of his best friend because that’s who he was, not because subconsciously he always wanted to kiss him and hold his hand. I still liked Willem as a character, maybe he wasn’t as layered as I would have wanted him to be and maybe he was frustrating at times (who takes 30 years to talk to their BELOVED BEST FRIEND about their self-harm?), but he was a well-rounded character in the end. With that being said, I think his death was a magnificent writing decision. It was a brutal, come out of nowhere death and it spiced the plot up. Unlike Sophie’s and Malcom’s deaths, Willem’s was completely justified in my opinion. It gave Jude a new challenge, it broke the repetitive pattern and stirred our curiosity about what was going to happen next. Even though I do not agree with the actual ending of the book I still believe that the events leading up to it were a good choice.

And now to the character we’ve all been waiting for, Jude. Listen, as everyone else I was really exited about Jude, I was counting the pages left until his POV, he intrigued me. There were lots of aspects that I liked about his character. His mental illness (yes, Andy, he was in fact mentally ill) was decently portrayed, I could relate to his mental process concerning self-harm and he definitely struck a cord with me. With that being said, his story could have been shorter and it could have left more space for other characters (*cough* Malcom *cough*). Jude’s story contained a repetitive pattern that had been dragged out for far too long ending in a predictable conclusion. Let’s start with the beginning, the back-story, the thing that we all wanted to find out about. I’m going to critic it’s credibility in just a second, but first I just want to say that the author’s attempt at building suspense completely flopped on me. The way she tried to spread the back-story all throughout the book did not keep me on my toes, it only annoyed and bored me, I couldn’t wait to get it out of the way once and for all.

Now, let’s say the monastery made sense, even Brother Luke made sense, but everything that followed was total bullshit. Is this boy just a magnet for abuse? Do abusers just sense him from 5 miles away or what? I’m not trying to seem insensible, but for real now! And how come every single person he meets is both a pedophile and interested in guys? I refuse to believe that every single counselor at that home and every truck driver is gay. What’s the actual probability of that being the case? I mean does nobody like vagina or what? The back-story is clearly exaggerated, but I guess that it does make Jude’s learning to trust people again more remarkable. I did enjoy the relationships he built for himself after everything that happened to him (except the one with Caleb of course) and I admired the courage it took him to trust Andy with his body, Harold with his fear of belonging to someone and Willem with his love and life. But in the end it was all for nothing, Jude still kills himself, all his progress is flashed down the toilet and you are left wandering what was it all for. I’m not saying all endings should be happy endings, damn, I love me a good sad ending, but making Jude’s suicide in the end come out as ok and acceptable just doesn’t send a good message, that he had nothing left to live for when he still got his goddamn parents who loved him more than anything else. Suicide should never be portrayed as something ok to do, something justifiable. Yes, Willem’s death was heart breaking for Jude, even more than that, it wrecked him all over again, but I really thought that this death would be used as an opportunity for Jude to get better, to show that you can get through anything. I get that life isn’t like that, I get that in real life suicide would probably be the actual thing a person would choose most of the time (hell, I don’t know what I would do if faced with this situation), I am not judging Jude, I am not condemning him, I’m just saying that there could have been a better ending. The least that could have been done was to still try to give it a positive note, Harold to remark that even though he understands why Jude did it and that he still loves him, there were alternatives, there was still a chance for him to be at peace with the world without dying.

All and all, I enjoyed A Little Life most of the times and I do not regret reading it even though it made me very angry at times. It is still a book I recommend, but I recommend reading it with a critical eye.