Thank you Doubleday Books for the e-galley of To Paradise. Overall, I liked this novel. It is divided into three books, and each book is unique. Each book is an entirely different world, but recurring themes tie the story together: romantic love, friendship, legacy, loneliness, illness. I enjoyed looking for these themes in each part and attempting to unpack the novel's meaning and message.

Ultimately, I decided that this is a book about who we are, individually and as a society, when times are hard. It is our nature to love--to seek it and give it--but it is also our nature to survive. And we keep our own close when there is danger. (There are many pandemics in this story.)

The first book of the novel felt very promising to me. I was excited to find out more about this world Yanagihara created that looks like the world I know, but where the history I know has been revised. After that, it was hit and miss for a while, dragging in a lot of places as I crossed my fingers that the effort would be worth it. (Note: I did audio and print. The audiobook narration is outstanding and helped push me over the hump when it felt tedious.)

Finally, there are many quotable passages in the last 50 or so pages that made me think, "Ah, maybe that was the point, the message." These pages were my favorite in the book and left me with a good impression of the novel overall.

To Paradise is beautifully written but felt a bit disjointed as the thread that is supposed to connect the 3 stories seemed very tenuous. It read more as two novellas and a novel to me. The ending was absolutely perfectly ambiguous and left me in tears with the beauty of how it was written.

At 700+ pages I was apprehensive to start To Paradise, so if you feel similarly don’t let the length intimidate you as this book is quite approachable. Yanagihara’s writing is beautiful and breathtakingly emotional. I think I’m one of the few who hasn’t read A Little Life, though it’s reputation goes without saying, so I was fully prepared to be emotionally devastated by this book. And at times it is devastating - these characters are beautifully written, often flawed, and do not get happy endings.

To Paradise spans two hundred years and is split into three different timelines - 1893, 1993 and 2093. Each story is different, but common themes (family relationships, colonialism, cultural identity, etc.) run throughout. The central characters in each book all have the same names, though their relationships don’t always follow the same patterns. This was one of the things I found myself paying the most attention to while reading this book - how does this Edward compare to the Edward of 1893 and how will history repeat itself?

It’s also interesting to see how society changes throughout the three generations. In dystopic 2093 there is no internet, no books, no television, but there is food and shelter. What are you willing to give up to stay alive? And do you want to know what that world looks like? Homosexuality is accepted and common in the first two books, but in dystopic 2093 people are forced into heterosexual pairings to encourage population growth.

I really enjoyed To Paradise and all that it made me think about. Books 1 & 3 were the strongest, in my opinion, and I can’t wait to revisit this in the future to see what I may pick up on during a second reading. Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday for an advanced copy. I can’t wait to read more of Ms. Yanagihara’s work.

This is truly a work of art. I had trouble getting to work and leaving the house in general while reading this book. At each new section, I would first feel disappointed that the last section was over, but then I would get sucked in again. This work is especially poignant given the last two years we have all been through with COVID. I remember thinking after reading A Little Life that the writing was beautiful, but that book just shredded me up (still loved it). This book is complex and interesting, and I cannot recommend it enough!

Thanks for the free book, Penguin Random House.

To Paradise marks my first time reading Hanya Yanagihara. I hoped it would be a beautiful reading experience but, I’m very sad to say, it was rather a frustrating one instead. Why? I think there was a lot of potential, and in certain moments you do feel it, but it could have been much better.

In To Paradise, the author deals with a lot of themes, all of them very powerful and always relevant, touching on both the private and social spheres. I felt, in particular, a criticism of the American Dream and a view of reality that only strenghtens the idea that the dream of finding somewhere to belong to, a “paradise”, is just a transient illusion, a hope for a future doomed to crumble under the weight of past and present. These and many other issues are the real protagonists of the entire novel, offering much food for thought but — despite having felt them, understood them and appreciated them — they didn’t manage to have the effect, the impact they should’ve had, if not in brief moments.

Yanagihara offers an exercise in style with a flowing prose, made yes of very long periods, but well-balanced by an excellent use of punctuation. And yet, what is maybe one of the strengths of the novel, is also a double-edged sword: while the story of the first book ends exactly when it should, the stories in book two and partly book three go on and on in a sort of exasperated stream of thought, which the writing sometimes manages to make even more exasperating.

The characters seem to have been created with the sole purpose of carrying the themes the author wants to convey through the narrative, which prevented me from developing any significant emotional investment in them.

Of the three books — connected by a rather tenuous thread — constituting the whole novel, the third might actually be the best one, considering length and complexity, but confirms the novel doesn’t have the strength to hit as it should, aside from a few moments in which Yanagihara’s words finally punch you in the solar plexus and you sense how different the reading experience could’ve been if this feeling had been steady for most of the 700+ pages, instead of just lapping in brief waves.
I wonder if with a different structure and a bit more editing, the idea behind this novel would’ve had a more convincing execution.

In short, To Paradise needs to overwhelm you body and soul in order to leave a deep impression; if it doesn’t succeed, as it’s happened to me, it loses most of its strength.

⭐3.5/5

The second I finished this book, I wanted to start reading it again. Each section makes you fall in love and then breaks your heart, only to fall in love with the prose and the story again.

To Paradise, is an unusual story which spans a period of 200 years! At 700+ pages, it is divided into (3) books: Book 1 (1893), Book 2 in (2) parts (1993) and Book 3 in (5) parts 2093-2094. I enjoyed Book 1 and 2 but, Book 3 not so much.

In Book 1, it is (1893) New York and New York is a free state where same sex couples are free to marry. David Bingham is a 28 year old man who lives with his wealthy grandfather Nathaniel and the servants in the Washington Square area of the city where he has led a life of privilege in this prominent banking family. His other siblings have already established their own lives so David spends most of his time with his grandfather and, part time teaching an art class at an orphanage. It is here that David meets Edward Bishop. Edward is a music teacher at the orphanage/school and, David falls fast in love with Edward. Edward is not a man of social status and David's grandfather has other plans for him. He plans an arranged marriage for David to Charles Griffith, a once married much older man with a respectable background whose same sexed husband died of cancer. Then we get a vibe of a possible yet undisclosed illness?

In Book 2 (1993) David is working as a paralegal in Hawaii and, he is involved with a senior partner named Charles.....yes same names as book 1 -- hmm. The two move into a mansion and we learn that David's origins seem to stem from Hawaiian royalty. We also learn that David's father (Wika) is ill and it is the height of the AIDS epidemic. There is also another Edward in this part - why did the author choose to use the same names? Perhaps making us think that history does repeat itself. This part takes a darker turn where we see the injustice of America's past.

Book 3 (2093) is divided into (5) parts - Autumn 2093, Autumn (50 years earlier), Winter 2094, Winter 40 years earlier and Spring 2094. The story here moves into a full blown dystopian totalitarian world. Back in New York where districts are divided into zones and illness and plague is rampant. Charlie appears here as well but, this time she is a female and she works in a laboratory. It's all somewhat complicated and at times just a bit too much for me. It was not the satisfying wrap up or the kind of story I was hoping and I was disappointed I didn't enjoy it more.

This author is no doubt talented and a deep thinker and while the story itself is expansive in scope, IMO, Too Paradise, is more likely the kind of book that may appeal to fewer readers than all who enjoyed, A Little Life so much.

This was a combo read/listen; The audio download was provided by PRH Audio and was excellent with a full cast: Feodor Chin, Edoardo Ballerini, Bd Wong, Catherine Ho, Kurt Kanazawa .

Rating - 3.5/5

TO PARADISE by Hanya Yanagihara
was one of my most anticipated books of 2022.

The novel is broken into three sections told centuries apart, in 1893, 1993, and 2093 and are connected not only through the setting—a Washington Square brownstone—but recurrent themes, character types, and conflicts.

In 1893, in an alternative history, New York is part of the Free States. Same-sex marriage is legal, even the norm, but unions are made based on political and financial alliances, not love. One of the most prominent men in the city tries to find a husband for his grandson, David, only for the wealthy scion to be tempted by an impoverished piano teacher with a suspicious past.

Book Two takes place during the AIDS epidemic, as a young man from Hawaii , also David, lives with his older, prosperous lover. The final section catapults readers into a future where a devastating plague led to a totalitarian government. The city is broken into zones with highly regimented control of passage, rationing, and full-body protective gear. Charlie, who received an early vaccine, also suffered side-effects which reduced her affect and made it difficult for her to read social cues. At first, she accepts the government’s rhetoric as truth but starts seeing its hypocrisy. Each character faces a crossroads, a risky chance to seek paradise. Yet, paradise might not be a location but a place among loved ones.

Although TO PARADISE is over seven hundred pages, it didn’t feel long to me. While I was reading it, I couldn’t think of anything else, and I neglected several things I should have done so I could return to the story. I really enjoyed the writing style and the repeating, cyclical nature of the elements of the text (though it also felt like a puzzle with no solution). The final section, strong enough to be a book on its own, was my favorite, and though that might relate to my fascination with dystopias, I give credit to Yanagihara for creating a just-possible future full of frighteningly ordinary, powerful details.

This is one of the most complex books that I have ever read in my life - in terms of the writing, the character and even the storytelling.

To Paradise is divided into three parts, and each could be its own book. The first is an alternate version of America in 1890s where there is no discrimination and you can love whoever you want. The second part focuses on the 1990s on a young Hawaiian who lives with his much older partner during the AIDS epidemic. The last 50% of the book focuses on the near future - 2090s where humankind has been through multiple pandemics and it is eerily dystopian.

The first part of the book is a take on how even if we lived in an alternate world where there was no discrimination based on your sexuality, we humans would find something else to fixate on. A young scion is told to get in an arranged marriage, but he falls in love with an enigmatic teacher who may not be who he seems to be. This part of the book felt very predictable and I was feeling a little underwhelmed after finishing it.

The second part of the book focuses on a young Hawaiian man who has left his royal family in Hawaii and has hidden all this from his partner. This part is divided between the POV of the young man in the 1990s and his ailing father in the past. There is a huge focus on Hawaiian colonization and culture. I liked this part of the book best - it seemed to have the most substance.

The third part of the book - around 50% mark - is set in the future. This alternates between two POVs as well and it was so depressing for me to read because all of it seems like it could be real. All the countries have closed their borders permanently due to multiple pandemics so much so that the children don't even know the name of the other countries that exist. The female narrator tries to find the truth of where her husband goes during his 'free' day of the week.

Reading this book is an immense undertaking. I love reading big books (this clocks in at around 720 pages) but the second half of the book was just very exhausting to read. There is so much focus on pandemics (one of the narrators is a scientist whose job is to find new infectious diseases) that it took a toll on my mind, so if you are sensitive to talk about pandemic, I'd definitely recommend to delay reading this at a later time.

This was also my first book by the author, and though I have known that their books tend to be more on the depressing side, I was not prepared for it to have this much effect on my mind. I don't think that it was because of the emotions that the book evoked in me - it was more about how it made me think that the dystopian future that it painted could so easily be the truth. Since I don't have anything to compare the book to, I think that the book is a huge feat, especially since all parts could be separate books of their own. I recommend this, but definitely wait to be in the right frame of mind to read it.

I'm late to this party, but I was so nervous to read this because of how much I loved A Little Life. I shouldn't have worried. Yanagihara has written another masterpiece, haunting and so hard to read but powerful. Loved it.

If you’re expecting this to be anything emotional or similar to A Little Life, don’t. This is a beast of a book, mostly about colonization and class. I struggled through many, many parts of it that felt wildly overwritten. I understand what Yanagihara was doing, it just wasn’t for me. Would make a great assigned reading for a college class.

This is a heart wrenching, gut wrenching march from 1893 to 1993 to 2093 done in 3 books, 3 stories, all coming together. To Paradise’s New York in 2093 is blood chilling., because Yanagihara illuminates a path that once seen, you’ll never been able to unsee or forget, as being quite possibly already here. At times I had to stop reading, because the emotional content was overwhelming, and that is to be expected by the author with their other works.

The story is actually 3 distinct stories and I expected them to more fully intertwine like Cloud Cuckoo Land. Each story was so captivating but I was distracted trying to figure out how each individual novel related to the story before, other than the same name. Yanagihara is an exquisite writer, and that is what propelled me to finish. I think the themes of family, if what is “ Paradise, of government control, gives the reader a lot to ponder. The book will stay with me, but in a different way than A Little Life. I would like to reread it, now that I know the structure and the characters.

I can see how this book is appealing. There is a specialty to it that someone can find themselves in. If not for how lengthy the book was, I would have enjoyed it more yet there were too plenty parts that I believe could have been cut off. It wouldn’t be a signature Yanagihara work if that were to happen, thus I just hope this book works better for you than for myself.

This was a long one. It is broken up into a few parts each featuring different characters and their stories.

Like so many others, I was very excited for this one. But it just missed the mark. I wasn’t connected with the characters and it was just so long.

It was interesting that each section featured characters with the same names (David and Charles). But they are unrelated and in their own worlds.

Basically, this one won’t stick with me. It was just fine and eh. More like 2.5 rounding up.

It's hard not to compare this to A LITTLE LIFE and while I find it unfair to do so, I can't help but having such high expectations for this novel after something as profound as it's predecessor. That being said, I did not love this one as much. I didn't really enjoy the 3 books in one. I would have much rather had one of the stories told in Hanya's extensive and beautiful way instead of feeling like each story was rushed. While this is a hefty book, so is A LITTLE LIFE and that stayed with one cast of characters, one storyline, one era which I found much more pleasing to read.

Regardless of all that, I still give TO PARADISE 4 stars as the writing is beautiful and imaginative. The concept of the different timeframes but same characters is interesting and there were a lot of important topics touched upon. It's crazy to think about the last book in comparison to the times we live in today with COVID. The fact that it seemed outlandish but at the same time, not.

All in all, a good book but I'd still recommend A LITTLE LIFE more.

I don’t think anything can compete with A Little Life but I was excited read To Paradise. I thought the premise was very interesting and so where the characters. I loved that the story was told through different generations. I’ll be honest, this is a very hard book to review and I don’t even know where to begin. Just do yourself a favor and read this story. Hanya Yanagihara is such a talented writer.

I’ll start off by admitting that I was not necessarily looking forward to starting this one. I loved A Little Life, but I’d also be lying if I said it wasn’t an absolutely devastating read, as I figured To Paradise would be as well. I also was hesitant that I’ve been a little slower getting through books lately, and 720 pages seemed daunting.

The thing I had forgotten was how beautiful Hanya Yanagihara’s writing is. 720 pages suddenly doesn’t seem so bad when the writing just flows so well. It’s poetic without being too flowery and overdone. I will say that she is such an artist when it comes to words.

The book is told in three parts, each serving as its own stand alone novella of sorts, although they are interconnected with similar themes, as well as the re-use of settings and character names, although applied to entirely different characters in very different time periods, set 100 years apart from each other. I’m certain that there are even more tangled pieces that weave through the stories as they pertain to the same name usage, etc. that probably went over my head, but even so, I enjoyed the stories for what they were.

Each of the stories offer rich character development, where, in true Hanya fashion, has a character wrestling with some traumatic internal conflict. The stories are all beautifully written, but riddled with sadness. Although, the open ended nature of each story gives a sort of feeling of hopefulness, especially as each section ends with the words “to paradise,” as if maybe there is an escape from the bleak worlds the characters have been rooted in.

The only things that didn’t work well for me were the pacing, especially in the second story, which was essentially divided into two parts. The division makes sense from a POV perspective, but considering it was my least favorite of the three stories, I felt it was hard to get through; and I found the “letters” in the third story almost unbelievably long. The story being told in the letters was great and obviously important to the plot, but they ventured on their own little stories in a way that didn’t feel like the letter correspondence it was pretending to be. Also, the re-usage of names kind of messed with me, but again, I’ll chalk that up to a deeper connection the probably went over my head.

I did really enjoy the book overall, and will always allow my heart to be broken by Hanya Yanagihara’s beautiful prose.

In a sense this is totally incomplete review because I didn't finish the book. While I think Yanigahara is a gorgeous writing I found myself tripped in the details. Why three stories with the same names for characters? Was there a thread linking the stories or is it thematic in nature only? Is the brownstone the only touchpoint between these time periods? I expect to go back to it at some point but it's not calling me.

This is very different from Yanagihara’s other work but still enjoyable. Her writing is beautiful and really pulls you in.