I love Hanya Yanagihara, and I loved A Little Life, I have incredibly mixed feelings on this book. On the one hand, the writing, as per usual, was beautiful. But I just don’t feel the same for the book as a whole.

To Paradise is told in three parts, three times, and almost like three worlds. In all honesty, it was such an interesting concept and it has given me so much to think about for a long time to come. However, much of it felt entirely unnecessary. This book is 700+ pages, and it often felt like there was little to no plot. There are times when this works, like it did for A Little Life, but I don’t think it worked quite as well here when we have such different stories and need to be able to stay engaged with each. The way the story and sections were structured also led to a lot of unnecessary confusion as well.

The concept and premise held such promise, but overall, the follow through was severely lacking. Despite this, I still feel I must acknowledge how beautiful the writing still is, regardless how poor the story itself was handled.

A massive book (much like A Little Life) that spans three separate (but connected?) timelines. It's a massive undertaking, and unfortunately, not as immersive as A Little Life. It felt overwritten - too much telling and not enough showing.

I'm sad as I was really looking forward to this one, but the investment wasn't worth the payoff.

An immersive, challenging and endlessly creative novel--a different read from Yanagihara's masterful previous novel, but one which spotlights this author's astonishing talents: complex, thought-provoking, and fiercely original.

How on earth do you succinctly review a 700+ page book from a master novelist like Hanya Yanagihara, knowing that this book will be devoured and dissected by many in the months to come? Before we go any further, let me say that if you are looking for a similar experience to her masterpiece A LITTLE LIFE, you will not find it here. This is not to say that TO PARADISE is not an epic novel that will keep you immersed and gripped, but I was not devastated after I put the book down and while it is sad, it is not the same sort of sad A LITTLE LIFE left you with. I feel that it must be impossible for an author to live up to such high expectations, so Yanagihara just wrote the book she wanted to write and some will love it and some will hate it.

The book is split into three parts, all depicting an alternative reality or dystopian future of America, specifically lower Manhattan. The first part takes place in 1893 and was my favorite part by far. It reads like a 19th century novel with a plot that grips and a cliffhanger that will leave you yelling. The middle part is set in the 1990s, where we learn about a young gay Hawaiian man who has made a new life for himself in NYC, and what he left behind in the islands. The final part, which is actually exactly the second half of the book, is a depressing dystopian look into the late 21st century with a plot that slowly describes plague and pandemics ravaging the world. This was the hardest part to read, and may be triggering to many as it can only be described as "too soon?" After what we all are going through right now, being immersed for 400 pages in a world that only gets worse from here is bleak and, unfortunately, I also found this part to be the weakest part of the novel.

I realize the three parts didn't have to be interwoven, but I wanted that to happen, especially for a 700 page novel. Cohesion is not always necessary, but it would have been appreciated. Queerness, sickness, patriotism, and LGBT relationships are threads throughout and they are big themes spread out through all 3 stories. I admire Yanagihara's thesis about what utopia means, and how easy an alternative reality of this country could have been (and the ramifications of that). The pacing is slow and the book itself is sometimes a page-turner, and sometimes not. It's an ordeal, an undertaking, and I cannot wait until we can all talk about it as I'm sure the opinions of those smarter than me will perhaps change my outlook. This one might not be a masterpiece, but it's certainly a success.

Each section of To Paradise has carried me off to another time and place and I've been immersed in the characters and their dilemmas. It was fascinating to spend time in such different environments, and to see how the author created different spins on the characters as they recurred in the different sections of the book.

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat, since I’ve seen a lot of others post about it—I will allay your fears and say this book will not tear you in two like A Little Life did. There were no tears from me, while I cried so hard at ALL that I woke up the next day with pink eye in both eyes, after rubbing them so furiously the night before.

The similarity is that this book, too, is a masterpiece, albeit a less masochistic one. An alternate history told in three parts, the final section being a dystopian tale taking place in a future version of New York that has been ravaged by multiple pandemics. I picked up the book not knowing it ended with such a bleak, sometimes triggering, section, so those looking to avoid any parallels to current events may want to skip this book for now.

But I will tell you that the 700+ pages flew by and did not leave me bereft like its predecessor.

This book was completely NOT for me. Though rich in detail and teeming with lovely writing, I read hundreds of pages and still discovered no plot.

I've just finished this book, and I think it will be one I think about for a long time. I can't say whether or not I liked it yet, but it was compelling and thought-provoking as Yanagihara's works always are.

The novel starts out strong: 1893 in an alternate timeline of America, where there are seemingly three countries on what we call the United States. The main character, David, is expected to marry soon. The major themes are love, class, race, privilege, and the difference between freedom from obligations versus protected freedoms of the law.

The second section takes place in 1993 New York, where another character named David/Kawika is living with his much older partner, Charles. It explores his upbringing in Hawaii and his emotionally disturbed father (also named David/Kawika). The major themes are similar: death, privilege, heritage, class, upbringing, nationalism, and what happens when you let someone influence your choices beyond reason. I found this section to be the most interesting, as it explores a very timely topic of legacy: who gets to keep their legacy, who gets to claim it, how does it tie to the future?

The third (and longest) section takes place in 2093, in a world ravaged by pandemics, climate change, and autocracy. The narration splits between the 2090s, with alternating chapters from the perspective of the narrator's grandfather, starting from the 2040s to the 2080s. This section was the most involved in terms of world-building and explanation, but in my opinion, it was the weakest of the three parts of the novel. I found some of the plotting to be stilted and clumsy, and found it frustrating that the one fully-formed woman character was still pretty empty.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. It was unclear to me if these three sections were supposed to be within the same "universe" as it were, with the characters being descendent as of the previous sections (all three sections utilizes the same names), or if the novel should be treated more as vignettes of what America (as a concept and a country) had and have the potential of being and becoming.

I have a feeling some people will be very upset by this book, for various reasons. For one, there are very few female characters in the novel, and most of them are one dimensional. A lot of the characters are gay men. A lot of characters are of native Hawaiian descent written by a non-native Hawaiian person. (I understand Yanagihara was raised in Hawaii, but as far as I know she is not of Hawaiian descent.)

There are also a lot of upsetting situations, especially in the third section of the book, that may be triggering for some people.

Ultimately, I think "To Paradise" will be talked about a lot next year, praised by some, harshly critiqued by others, and all of it will be valid. But the themes in the book are important conversations we should be having as a nation, and I will certainly be recommending it to people who are familiar with A Little Life, who like speculative fiction, and those that enjoy dense and complicated stories with heavy themes.

I'm sure they've been corrected already, but I found a few grammatical errors. Here are their "locations" in the Kindle edition of the galley:

Loc 6470, Loc 9084, Loc 9260, Loc 10289

Oh my gosh: it’s totally impossible for me to adequately sum up either this novel or my thoughts so this is just the surface. This is a very personal yet universal look at the human need for love, trust, freedom, kindness, equality, societal stability, happiness …in short, Utopia. Remarkable in its insight and amazing in its scope, it is destined and deserving of accolades and rewards.

Thanks to NetGalley and Doubleday/Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

To Paradise is an extremely powerful and compelling novel. This is Hanya Yanagihara’s upcoming third book, set to release on January 11th, 2022. In the novel, there are three different stories, set in three different periods of time, 1983, 1993, 2093. The first half of the book is divided between the two earlier dates, and the latter takes up all the second half of the book. My favorite part by far was the third one, it was disturbing, compelling, partially told through letters which I adore.

This book is definitely a five-star read. Even when I had barely begun reading it got the feeling that it reminded me of the way classic books are written, and the way classic stories unfold. This is, undoubtedly, a classic for our times. If you read Hanya’s most famous book, “A Little Life” or even if you just heard about it, the gruesome devasting themes and descriptions it entails, you might be a little hesitant (if you didn’t like it) or you might be expecting the same tear shredding kind of book with this new one. I feel like it is my mission, having read the arc, to say that this book is nothing like “A Little Life”. I feel like that is a piece of good information to have on your mind when you enter this journey so that you don’t feel disappointed with the kind of novel this one is. It is a very special, particular, different, and at times frustrating story. It is what it is. You’ll have to take it for what it is. Whether it will be to hate it or to love it. For my part, I was adamant to think that it could be too close to “A Little Life” that it would be hard to repeat the same feat twice (and honestly is it really necessary to do so) and therefore it was with immense relief that I discovered the gloriousness of “To Paradise”. I confess, at times I was leaning towards a four-star rating, but I realized that I was just a little off from the true magic and greatness of this story.

I do have to commend the incredible and amazing work done by Hanya in her craft of this story, the sheer amount of work it must have taken to create not one, but three stories inside one novel, that have fully-fledged atmospheres and ambiences particular to each of them, and make them seem so astoundingly real, is really something that blew my mind about this book, and probably my favorite thing about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about this world, about these places and realities, their closeness and distances from our real world right now. This book touches on so many themes, and does wonderfully with each of them, from heredity to identity, to nationality, from sexuality to family, desire, commitment, to health and love and sickness, to control, totalitarianism to cite some of them (there is probably more). The weight is always imbued in the narrative, but it is done carefully and precisely, making the reader constantly question everything, not just inside the story but within our lives as well.

This book has left me staring at the ceiling thinking how I would go on after I finished it. It has not left my mind ever since, and I don’t think it will for a long time. The descriptions were so vivid and powerful I still see flashes of the story happening in my mind. I wish the stories inside “To Paradise” could go on forever. An interesting fact that permeated my reading experience of this book is that while I read it I was simultaneously listening to the original soundtrack from the 2014 movie “Interstellar” and now I have connected the two, which means that whenever I listened to the soundtrack, I remember scenes of the book. I think this even helped me to retain more strong memories of certain parts of the narratives, and especially the ambiance and descriptions of the places in the book.

Whoever has the slightest interest in reading this book, I urge you to do so. If you’ve never read anything by Hanya Yanagihara before, maybe because you think “A Little Life” is not for you, I urge you to pick up “To Paradise”. If you like classic books, or simply books that have good stories in them, I urge you to pick this up. You’ll not be disappointed. As for me, I will be here, still processing this story with both admiration and longing for it. Truly a favorite for me.

Thank you to Penguin Random House for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Outstanding. A long, inventive, constantly intriguing saga of multiple strands - heredity, sexuality, commitment, nationhood.
The author brings a brilliant technique to her narrative. The storytelling is engrossing, the detail compelling, whether of the Dickensian past or the Orwellian future. I was dazzled.

There is no doubt about Hanya Yanagihara's writing skill, and To Paradise certainly shows it off, but the book is long. Very long. Too long. It is also confusing--told in three sections that have characters with the same names who wrestle with similar issues--the themes of identity, health, and family come through muddled. The premise and story of To Paradise showed promise, but the execution became mired in too much language and trapped in her own literary device.

Yanagihara is a master in their craft. Once again, I could not pull myself away from this novel, much like I couldn’t stop reading “A Little Life”. While the themes in this intergenerational novel are heavy- death dying, the role of the state in our lives, health and love, the novel includes such richness, that you as a reader never feel depleted by its themes. The endings, for their are multiple, can be a bit frustratingly abrupt, but do stoke the imagination. Lovely novel. ,

This book is essentially structured as three independent stories that are loosely and thematically connected. They traffic in alternative histories, dystopian pandemics and realistic romance. While certain endings are maddeningly ambiguous, it's somehow more endearing than frustrating. Simply incredible.

It's really, really hard for me to not feel shortchanged at the end of this book - which, in reality, was more like three books that had their endings snipped so they could be squashed into one. Now, the concepts at the heart of each of these three parts are interesting, but they're also incredibly frustrating because none of them ever seem to get resolved or, worse, to have any real bearing on the subsequent sections.

Oh, to be sure the book has throughlines: certain names and places crop up again and again, and there is the vague implication that all the main characters are related, but...none of that ever seems to amount to anything more than motif. The first part of the book is an alt history of New York where gay people could get married: why was that literally never discussed, even as an allusion in the other two sections? Why spend so many pages on that concept only to have the AIDS crisis play out just as it had in our actual history? And, on a more character related level, why not take the opportunity to give a clearer, more definitive ending to the characters in the previous sections? I really don't get what the point of withholding that was, particularly when it is, again, strongly implied that all the main characters are related? I suppose withholding closure is more high-brow, more literary, but...it's also more frustrating and makes each section's ending paragraphs ("...to paradise") feel increasingly exasperating. If Yanagihara had chosen only one of these stories to tell, I think it would've worked for me. But to stack three together just made it wearying. And again: why bother with all three of them if you're not going to use them to build on each other? I mean, build on them with something more concrete than recurring names.

It's especially frustrating because of how deeply interesting and engrossing certain parts of this book are (that last section, woof), and of course the writing is really lovely. But all the same I couldn't help but finish this book feeling annoyed: yes, it deals with a lot of fascinating subject matter, yes, it's beautifully composed, but it also fails to live up to the promise of its format, and leaves you hanging, not wanting more.

Mya Alexice
477 reviews
30 followers
September 10, 2021
Listen y'all. I don't know WHAT to say about this book. It's five stars based purely on craft, but I do think there's a larger conversation about this book and Yanagihara as a writer.

There are people who will be able to articulate this better than me, so I'll just say what I think should be touched on in conversations around To Paradise.

1) As far as we know, Yanagihara is a straight woman. I could be wrong about this, and if I am, forgive me. But as far as we know, Yanagihara's three novels are all strangely concerned with the lives of gay men. Their traumas, their tragedies, their struggles. Why? I have no idea. Is it problematic? I'm not a gay man so I can't speak to that. I can just say it feels a little odd.

2) Yanagihara loves trauma. She loves to break your heart into pieces, purposefully and gleefully (at least that's what it feels like). Is the sadness porn an issue? I'm not quite sure—plenty of authors do it, so maybe I'm just being extra harsh after A Little Life, which felt absolutely relentless in its reveling in suffering.

3) This book is very strange. Many separate characters share the same name, and it's not ever quite clear if the three main stories are literally interconnected in the same universe or rather just share the same themes (and character names). It's a weird experience, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Truly waiting for someone else to word it better.

All of that said, every book of Yanigihara's haunts me for some time after, and this one is no exception. Bring the tissues (and your Kindle—this is one chunky tome).