weird how Jude has to go through sm trauma when in reality a trauma from his formative years is good enough to show why he is the waste he is as an adult. there's no need to consistently bombard the readers with unrelenting misery to get that point across. it felt like an exploitation of suffering for dramatic effect rather than an exploration of pain and how it shapes people.

there's no catharsis or relief. we do get a few moments of joy for Jude but it's quickly taken away to make the readers feel even worse for him. there's no growth, no attempt at showing resilience. just throwing you into this despair and making you feel like everything is hopeless. i get it, right. some people don't make it through not because of who they are but because of the circumstances that affected them. however, i just think it feels hollow and too straightforward. it doesn't explore the nuances of how life is. Jude's trauma feels exaggerated and detached from reality. sometimes, it felt almost unbelievable that he's coming across another bad person again. i get it that in real life, people who have gone through trauma usually attract horrible people in their lives but this was not the case for Jude. it seemed like evil people just find him randomly rather than him being self-destructive (a symptom of trauma). it felt contrived. Jude was stripped of his agency and he became this figure who only exists to endure pain. he didn't feel like a real person that i could actually care about. he was a person whose defining trait what was he's been through rather than the author possibly exploring how this is part of their complex humanity. trauma became Jude's identity rather than just a part of him that he tries to overcome. maybe it wouldn't have defined him if he wasn't relentlessly traumatised but i don't even think his constant suffering is needed even if Yanagihara wanted the ending to be the way it is. characters don't need to be relatable. they just need to reflect real and consistent human complexity and flaws.