Suppose the earth were to shift in space, only an inch or two but enough to redraw their world, their country, their city, themselves, entirely?” This question, posed in Book II of Hanya Yanagihara’s latest novel, To Paradise, is the imaginative centre of the whole piece. Taking place over three different centuries, each presenting a slightly skewed version of history, or, in the case of the final section, an imagined future, Yanagihara’s novel marshals a cast of recurring characters through variations of their lives and relationships as they play out in these different worlds.

The novel begins in Washington Square, New York, in 1893. In this reality, New York is one of the “Free States” that seceded from the rest of the US in an alternative vision of the post-civil war era. These states have built themselves on an acceptance of gay marriage, which has reconfigured traditional family dynamics by normalising adoption. This seeming utopia is undermined by the Free States’ attitudes to people of colour: they will help freed slaves to the safety of other states but don’t allow them to settle, and by their deeply troubling approach to poverty, which is shown most starkly in the common practice of taking the children of the poor to be raised in institutions geared towards producing effective labourers or to be adopted by the numerous wealthy citizens looking to complete their own families—all in the name of charity, of course.

In this world, we follow the wealthy and powerful Bingham family. Descended from a key founder of the Free State, the family is showing signs of decay as it begins to fall foul of a kind of generational decline with each generation achieving less than the one before. Perhaps the last great Bingham, Nathaniel, is the grandfather of David, a socially awkward shut-in, whose unlikely love triangle between a proposed arranged marriage to a much older wealthy merchant, Charles, and an exciting but also potentially dishonest young music teacher, Edward Bishop, forms the central narrative of this section. The themes raised in this first part of the book—family, colonialism, racism, love and relationships, decline—are revisited in different guises in Books II and III.

Book II takes place in the late 1900s both in Hawaii, and in the same house in Washington Square from the first section (this house, one of the key anchor points within the novel, will appear again in Book III). This section follows descendants of the former royal family of Hawaii. Its title, Lipo-Wao-Nahele, takes its name from the vision for a slice of true Hawaii imagined by our main characters (two David Bingham’s, a father and son known by their Hawaiian name Kawika—the father being referred to by the shortened version, Wika, and Wika’s radicalised old school friend, Edward Bishop). This true Hawaii, untouched by American hands, is a doomed paradise. It can never be truly realised, and certain characters are irreparably damaged in its pursuit.

The Washington Square portion of the narrative is set against a representation of something like the AIDS crisis, though the disease is never named. The younger Kawika, going by David, is living with the much older Charles, whom, in a reversal of fortunes from Book I is the wealthy owner of the Washington Square House. Here, they host a party for a friend who has chosen assisted dying over cancer. Other guests, including Charles himself, are living with the unnamed disease. As in the first section, there is a strong sense of decline, and of people attempting but ultimately failing to mobilise whatever they have at their disposal, be that wealth or simple hope, against what seems like an inevitable demise. This sense of demise reaches its culmination in the final section, wherein Yanagihara presents us with a vision of the future as a full dystopia.

Book III takes place in the 2090s with a sequence of letters providing insights into events from the fifty years leading up to that time. In this timeline, Charles exists as the male letter writer, telling his friend about his struggles with his son, David, as the world begins to fall apart, and, in the 2090s, in the guise of Charlie, a female lab tech whose mental capacity has been impacted by a pandemic illness. This section presents a reality where the earth has been heated to catastrophic levels, water and food are scarce, and a series of deadly pandemics have cut through populations and ushered in totalitarian regimes. Many have already noted the iron-hot relevance of this section to our contemporary moment: caught in the midst of a global coronavirus pandemic and witnessing increasing numbers of climate change-related disasters from extreme weather events to wildfires and tsunamis. Yet, what strikes me most is not reading our possible near future writ large, but seeing how even amid such destruction, humanity plods along, relentlessly, repeating the same patterns of behaviour that led us, collectively, to that point. The wealthier in society still use their money to enjoy what freedoms and luxuries they can, even as they watch the poverty-stricken masses (mostly people of colour) queue in the punishing heat and stench for their turn in an air shower; the general population accept worse and worse conditions, fewer and fewer rights, lower and lower baselines for normality, and continue, much as before, even as swathes of people are killed or left to die; and individuals continue to love and to lose, to hope and to despair with the same intensity and passion as ever.

Ultimately, Yanagihara’s novel, through its various reincarnations, shows us how much of our character, as individuals and as a species, is constant. For good or ill, much of who we are is immovable, and the ultimate destination on our current trajectory is bleak. Yet, there is hope. Each of the sections in this novel end with the same two words: to paradise. Characters believe in their own redemption, whether through taking a chance on love or believing, finally, in their own inner strength. However compromised these beliefs may be by other perspectives within the narrative, they are not completely overridden. It is up to the reader to decide on whether the ending is happy, as the narrators believe, or whether the story will follow the more predictable pattern of heartbreak and death.

Right, this HUGELY anticipated book isn't even published until tomorrow but I was very lucky to read an advance copy over Christmas. I don't know how many of you read the mighty A Little Life a few years back but this is the next book from that author, Hanya Yanagihara.

To Paradise is back on familiar territory - a very large 700 page novel about a group of (largely) gay men living in NYC but that is the only correlation between A Little Life and this.

To Paradise is actually a collection of three stories - one set in a fictional past NYC where gay marriage was legal but the US was a divided country where different rules applied in different states; the second is set in a version of 1990s NYC where an unspecified plague is killing gay men (AIDS parallels obvs) and the third is set (quite extraordinarily) in a post-pandemic NYC 50 years in the future where the political divisions of the country and the endless pandemics have wreaked havoc on persona freedoms and lives.

In each setting, we visit a different set of friends, a different set of people, with unique issues and circumstance's. Yet, slowly (and extremely cleverly) threads / connections across the stories emerge.

Hanya has written an epic - it'll sweep all the book prizes - that examines inherited wealth, the lie of progressive liberalism, questions assumptions we make on enlightenment and society, and examines issues of race, misogyny, homophobia and loneliness.

IT'S AMAZING!!!!! This book is nowhere near the harrowing pain of A Little Life; To Paradise is sadder, more reflective, more on board with lives as unfulfilled existences.

To Paradise is a more measured, thoughtful book than A Little Life was (or less emotionally gut wrenching anyway!); it derives its emotional weight through repeated themes and developed insight into loss, rather than the at times overwhelming trauma of the previous book.
I hadn’t appreciated how distinct the three sections would be, it is very much a case of five distant stories with the linking themes of family , loss and protecting those close to you. To my surprise I found the final half of the book the most effective- I say surprise as I can feel pandemic fatigue and wasn’t sure if I was really ready for a dystopian new york after waves of outbreaks… but the letters setting out how this happened are incredibly effective.

Quietly moving, with subtle emotional beats that have stayed with me

So this is the long-awaited, third novel by Hanya Yanagihara, which unfortunately has to live up to the very high expectations after "A Little Life". And once again, Yanagihara's work is mighty extensive and spans many, many years. Do I actually need to reproduce the plot or do you all already know it by heart?

So how to describe this epic without repeating what a thousand others before me have already said about the book? That is at least as difficult for me as to summarize the essence of the book. I'll try anyway.

Basically TO PARADISE is about freedom, family, origin and home. About a life in the face of (mostly unspecified) illnesses. About longing. And during a time window spanning 300 years - including numerous characters with identical names, who are not always ancestors and descendants of each other. While the first two sections of the book are admittedly set in an alternate reality that is only selectively different from ours, the third part steps out far ahead into our future, into a world that seems to have come out of a dystopian climate fiction young adult book - so it's appropriately creepy. And honestly, this third part is also the one I liked best. The first half of the book took place without any bigger happenings. It's not until Part 3 that the pace picks up and I wonder if TO PARADISE could have just been a dystopian novel of just under 450 pages. The comparison to "A Little Life" really forces itself on me, because even though I wasn't a fan of that (when I finished the book I was SAD about that Misery Porn), all the main characters from "A little life" really got to my heart at every moment, Not so in this one, unfortunately, where all the characters (except for Charlie and her grandfather) remained strangely pale.

Still, I can say that not many authors manage to keep me interested for almost 900 pages - especially when I say that almost half of it was just average! However, Yanagihara's writing style, which already guided me well through the 1200 pages of "A little life", again contributed to this.

In the end TO PARADISE is perhaps not my new favorite book, but well worth reading - although the third part and Charlie may probably always keep a special place in my heart. 🥰

“America is not for everyone—it is not for us.”

This is a very thought-provocative and interesting book. I don’t know if I will ever read it again--it's doubtful. I felt the same way about A Little Life, which similarly to To Paradise was a compulsive read I couldn't put down. It's safe to say A Little Life is much more challenging due to its graphic content.

To Paradise is also challenging, but mainly due to its length. It’s a novel that asks the reader to have a lot of patience, to be quite active in their attention. I respect this a lot. You can clearly see that Yanagihara is not making a lot of compromises; she is committed to her vision, to the kind of novel she wants to write. And to this I say… good for her! I admire her ambition, and her vision.

The book is basically three novellas, and is linked by characters having the same name (David, Charles, Eden, etc.). There’s also a fancy house that appears in all three. There's also the theme of what the U.S. is, or can be. It is a novel of Big Themes and Ideas. IDK about the blurb saying that it’s better than War and Peace, though…!! That’s QUITE the claim.

The first novella is set in an alternative universe U.S. where it’s the 19th-century and safe-sex partnerships are legal. This is interesting to read because it’s like queer Henry James/Edith Wharton. I found it genuinely suspenseful and would have honestly read a whole novel in this vein. The second novella is set in contemporary times and follows the farewell dinner for a dying man, and the monologue by one of the characters' father, who is descended from Hawaii’s last king and is in what I understood as some kind of mental institution. The father once participated in a kind of back-to-nature, live-off-the-land cult project, which did not go well. The third novella (and the longest) is set in a futuristic, dystopic U.S. where constant viruses are wreaking havoc and causing people to live isolated, shut-in lives that the novel constantly questions: is this really living? Is it worth it? (A similar question asked by A Little Life.)

I was reminded a lot of Ishiguro by the first-person narration, and the sense of regret—characters who feel like they’ve failed, like they’re ruined their lives and there’s nothing they can now do about it. The segment that most struck me was in the third novella, about a pair of twins sickened by the virus who now live their lives entirely indoors, encased in protective suits. “The question of what their lives would be—in their house forever, with only each other and their mother for company—had always troubled me.” This was a really interesting question poised by the novel, similar to the refrain of Survival is insufficient from Station Eleven. How life basically isn’t just about survival; you need friendship and culture. It’s astonishing to think that Yanagihara wrote the majority of this before the COVID pandemic (though I’m sure she went back and revised lots of parts in the wake of it.)

The other really interesting thing the novel emphasises (again, similar to A Little Life) are primal emotional ties. While in A Little Life it’s friendship, in To Paradise it’s family. “In the end, you chose, and you never chose your friends, not if you had a partner or a child.”

What I like about Yanagihara’s writing—what makes it compulsively readable to me—is the melodrama. She is NOT afraid of being dramatic. A Little Life was famously called “operatic,” and I see a similar instinct on display here. She has no qualms whatsoever about allowing horrible things happen to her characters. It makes for dramatic reading.

I’m glad I read this, and I think it’s the kind of book a lot of people will read and discuss. Is it the kind of novel anyone would love? Hard to say. But I’m glad it exists. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

“When you’re older, you do anything you can to try to stay alive.”

“The world that we live in—a world that, yes, I helped create—is not one that will be tolerant of people who are fragile or different or damaged.”

“When I was an undergraduate, a professor of mine had said there were two types of people: those who wept for the world, and those who wept for themselves. Weeping for your family, he said, was a form of weeping for yourself.”

“I cannot do anything else to help the world—I can only try to help Charlie.”

“Fear of disease, the human instinct to stay healthy, has eclipsed almost every other desire and value they once treasured, as well as many of the freedoms they had thought inalienable.”

“Survival allows for hope—it is, indeed, predicated on hope—but it does not allow for pleasure, and as a topic, it is dull. Talk, touch: the things C. and I kept reuniting to find.”

“For a long time, I assumed that it would be a virus that would destroy us all in the end, that humans would be felled by something both greater and much smaller than ourselves. Now I realise that that is not the case… Some of us will die, but others of us will keep doing what we always have, continuing on our own oblivious way, doing what our nature compels us to, silent and unknowable and unstoppable in our rhythms.”

“I had chosen safety over her fulfilment.”

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for allowing me the opportunity to read an advance copy of this highly anticipated new novel from the author of the globally successful "A Little Life" . Unfortunately this book did not work for me . I found it very confusing in parts and the structure presents several difficulties.. Much of the confusion comes from trying to link the sections while reading.. that was a major issue for me.. i think if she hadn't used the same names I might have had less problem with this. The very fact the same names were used screamed LINK LINK and it's not necessary to rack your brain constantly while reading this.

The second part was by far the weakest section. It starts off in a group of gay men during the Aids epidemic and stories of how this disease affected the gay community are always of interest to me. However it becomes a rather incoherent mess about the Hawaiian Royal family and a tale of the descent of one member into mental illness and it is impossible to see what point or themes Yanigahara is trying to make here.

I did however really enjoy the first section of the novel in which we are given an alternate reality where same sex marriage has been accepted in the New York of the 1890s. A beautifully written Whartonesque tale, I feel this would have worked better as a standalone novel and it's a world and characters I would like to hear more from.

All in all this book raises many questions which I cannot help but feel would have been more successfully executed with more skillful construction. It leaves one as a reader with absolutely no sense of what the author was trying to evoke or achieve.

I’m struggling to articulate how I felt about To Paradise and I’m sure someone will put this in a far more eloquent way, but the truth is I just didn’t care. In spite of Yanagihara’s powerful prose, I didn’t get invested in the characters nor their lives and felt like I was watching their lives from afar as opposed to feeling immersed in their world. ⁣
⁣
Another thing I always find grating is when whole new worlds can be created or reimagined but somehow anti-Black racism always exists. ⁣
The first part of To Paradise is set in 1893 in a reimagined New York which is part of the “Free State” in a post-civil war America. In this version of New York, same-sex marriage is the norm and the protagonist’s relationship with two men is explored. And yet, this somewhat “progressive” protagonist still manages to be racist. Why? How did this develop the character? What did this actually add to the story? ⁣

The prose itself is beautiful and Yanagihara's writing is the kind you study to make yourself a better writer. Although I didn't particularly enjoy this book, the writing is what kept me going.

Okay so I enjoyed A Little Life when I read it some years ago but didn't think I'd pick up another Yanagihara book after that. But then this one started getting so much hype and discourse that I just couldn't help picking it up.

The book is divided into three stories, the first one set in an alternate universe in the 19th century in which the US separated into three countries. Honestly this first story was nothing too special, it felt like the usual "rich main character meets poor love interest who shows them how to enjoy life" plot in a queer setting. It was fine, I even liked it. What I was less sure about was the treatment of Black people in the story. Honestly I am not sure what to think about it, as I don't think authors should have to deal with social issues in their books, but it was mentioned a few times that Black people had right in one or two of the countries but not in the one this story is set in, and then it was dropped entirely - left me feeling like, was that just for world building? Not really relevant to the story at all? I don't know, I wish this had been developed a lot more. Even the class discussion I thought this part of the story would bring didn't quite deliver.

The second book was a mixed bag. It starts off as if it's going to be about AIDS and what it was like living as a gay man during the epidemic, but then it takes a turn and tells another story altogether (which is far more interesting than the story of two rich men with no personality). Once again, though, I felt like I didn't quite get this story. Why start with David and Charles when they were the least interesting story? We could have just jumped into the second part of this story and reduced a hundred pages.

And the third part. Oh my god, I was so bored, PLUS it's the longest part of the book. The endless descriptions of how the dystopic world worked bored me to no end. I feel like I've read a million "bleak, totalitarian future" books and while this one had its moments of brilliancy, heart and of course, gorgeous writing (this is Yanagihara after all), I was mostly just reading this for hours on end like a chore I was not particularly interested in.

All in all, this book gave me the impression of being one big "epic project" that the author put lots of effort to and it was mostly successful in being three gorgeously written stories about love, desire and hope, but it was just incredibly boring, a bit pretentious and it could have easily been 200 pages shorter. I was also a bit frustrated because this seemed like it would touch on racism, classism, homophobia but it never really does. The commentary is so superficial it feels more like part of the world building as a background to the story than like anything more, which I had hoped for, and some of the most interesting character are never really explored (books 2 and 3 Eden for example) and instead we follow wet-towel David and lovesick-but-and-also-a-wet-towel Charles. In all three stories Charles and David are privileged and rich, which means there was SO much of the world left unexplored because we always saw it thought the lenses of privilege.

It took me a bit of time to decide on a rating, because 2 stars felt unfair to this gorgeous, extensively crafted novel, but 3 stars would not realistically represent how many times I wanted to put this down and not pick it up anymore. In the end, because this was a long chore that I mostly had to make myself read plus the other issues I mentioned before, I gave it 2 stars. It took me about a week to read this but it felt like a month.

When I saw Hanya Yanagihara was releasing a new book, to say I was excited is an understatement. A Little Life is one of my favorite books of all time. In saying that, the first thing to know about this book is that it’s not A Little Life and you should set your expectations accordingly. The second thing to know is this book is quite long and you should ensure you have the time to digest it accordingly. This is one to savor!

The writing style is unique, almost lyrical and such a pleasure to read. You will find yourself immersed in rich worlds which feel familiar yet different. In these worlds you will get to know relatable and deep characters who will tug at your heart strings. My only criticism of this book is that I wanted more of it. Even after 720 pages I found myself wanting to know what happens next.

The book is split into three sections which each introduce somewhat related characters. It reminded me of those anthology tv-shows where you have the same actors play different characters in different seasons. I’d have to say my favorite was the first section so much that I was disappointed when this section ended at around the 25% in mark only to be introduced to someone new. The middle section drags a little and the pace is quite slow but push through it as the book redeems itself in the final act.

While not an action-packed book, it is quietly profound and meaningful and offers much more than a surface-level story. Overall, this is a well-written book filled with complex and deep characters. This is surely one you won’t want to miss.

Thank you to Hanya Yanagihara, Pan Macmillian and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

To Paradise is one of the most eagerly awaited books of 2022 after the success of A Little Life. However, while brilliantly written, is it completely different in composition, tone and emotion.
This book has 3 distinct and unrelated parts:
Part 1 is set in an alternate New York in the 1890s; Part 2 is set in New York and Hawaii in the 1990s; the final 50% of the book Part 3 is set in 2090 and shows a dystopian, virus ridden world. Each part would work as a novel in its own right as the theme of illness and use of the same names throughout are the only thing that binds them.
I loved each separate story especially Parts 1 and 2 but felt unfulfilled as they all has an ambiguous ending. Part 3 was engrossing but perhaps too stretched out. It featuring a dystopian future which feels a little too real at present! (viruses, containment centres, people wearing masks & cooling suits).
While I really enjoyed this book I felt no emotional connection to the characters or story that would make it a 4 or 5 star read. Still highly recommended.

I came to read Hanya Yanagihara's To Paradise in total ignorance of the author and having already forgotten (on purpose?) the blurb which I suppose made me request it in the first place. The cover, I remembered yet made no real sense as I started to get into the novel, and then it did... Reading on my Kindle also meant I had no idea how long the text was... it is long, but it is so entrancing that the last thing you are is impatient for it to finish, on the contrary, I would not mind... another Book (there are three: Washington Square, LIpo-Wao-Nahele, and Zone Eight).
You cannot read Washington Square without thinking of Henry James's work and indeed, the opening story read like one set in "his" Washington Square... until I had to stop and re-read a paragraph three times, go on reading and do the same again to confirm what I was reading. Suffice it to say that gender politics are one of the themes of the novel, as well as what makes us who we are in relation to personality, family and society around us. The storylines are truly entertaining, the writing style and tone varied and different in each section, always surprising (the voices of Zone Eight are , the constants (family, grandparents, gender, wealth and rank,, illness...) are what ultimately make this novel great for me. Not a family saga as we normally know them but something new, interesting and thought-provoking.
If New York is the site of the story, Hawai'i is its fulcrum, and no, it is not the Paradise of the title, that remains to be discovered by the intrigued reader. I am a fan. I particularly loved the entertaining qualities of the stories, the minutiae with which life is portrayed, the characters' thought processes, their analysis of their own situation in time and space. I loved the surprises that Yanagihara springs regularly. The last book could have been trimmed but I understand why probably wasn't - there is a rather repetitive device in the structuring of the narration that I did not find as satisfying as in the previous two books, but there are so many ideas brought to the table to be discussed that its detail is unsurprising.

To Paradise is definitely a novel very much worth reading: entertaining, intelligent, supremely of our times, and it has confirmed why I love to read "blind" books. The pleasures of discovery are here one of the main draws. A wonderful novel with which to start my reading year!

With many thanks to Doubleday via NetGalley for an advance copy of this top novel.

I loooooooooved A little life and I was really looking forward to reading Yanagihara's new book, so I requested it as soon as it was available.

The book is composed of three parts (Books I, II, and III), which are fairly independent from each other and could have been written as separate novels (they're all long enough for this as well, with Book III occupying the last half of To Paradise). The books are united by a shared setting and the topics covered (freedom, disease, privilage, love, and the fact that they're all utopian worlds), as well as the fact that the characters share names (but they're not the same people each time).

- Book I focuses on the love story between David Bingham and charismatic Edward, who David falls head over heels for, all the while while David's grandfather is arranging a marriage with older, richer, widower Charles.

- Book II is splitted in two parts. In one of them we have our main character David having an affair with a senior lawyer (again, Charles) at the firm he works in. This David is not the rich heir from Book I. Instead, he's of Hawaiian descent and his father is dying. Their two POVs swap throughout this section of the book so we hear about David's upbringing.

- Book III is the longest of the three. We have an unnamed narrator (we discover their name towards the end) who's living in a dystopian world in which the characters are used to living in a pandemic; a world that we see coming through Books I and II.

So that's the (extremely simplified) setup. I thoroughly enjoyed Book I, Book II not so much but still did, and Book III was just too long to keep me interested, and I found myself skimming at some points and losing interest in the overall plot. The writing is as good as you'll remember from A little life, but I just felt that it could have been shortened by 100 pages easily. There are links between the three sections, but they didn't feel like they were really needed -- they're only needed if you want the three stories to be part of the same novel, but as I said before there was no need, and they stand alone independently easily.

If you get this book thinking of A little life, I think you'll be disappointed. It definitely lacks the emotional power that Yanagihara's previous book had, and in this case you'll only be mad (at the governments, mostly). It's true that the future described in Book III did not feel impossible, and reading it during the our own pandemic perhaps didn't do it any favours, but eventually this Book ruined To Paradise for me. I didn't (and still don't) understand the need for the mysterious unnamed narrator, and I think not knowing who was speaking made me keep a distance with the character, and ultimately not caring as much about what happened to them. I was fairly invested in the characters at the beginning (in Book I), but the more I advanced in the (whole) book, the less interest I had, and I think it's difficult not to compare them to the feelings evoked in all of us by the friends in A little life, and find To Paradise severely lacking in this area.

Having said all of that, I still wouldn't tell people not to read the book. I wouldn't really recommend it either, but it does have superb writing if you like Yanagihara's style, and I think ultimately it will depend on the extent to which you like reading about topics such as family, loyalty... and pandemics. I found it very hard to decide on a rating for this book, but as Book III is the longest (half of To Paradise) and (for me) the most 'meh', I ultimately had to lower my initial rating and admit my disappointment.

Happy Publication Day!!

This will probably be the longest review I have ever written. Either because of the amount of pages, or because of the variety of emotions and thoughts it has provoked, or both.

The book is divided into 3 different novels. The first one takes place in an alternate New York in 1893 which became part of Free States. Here people are free to live and do whatever they want and there the young heir of a wealthy family, who is betrothed to an older gentleman, falls for a music teacher who barely can make ends meet. The second one takes us to 1993 New York drowning in the AIDS epidemic, where a young Hawaiian man lives with a much older, wealthy partner, when a letter from his deep hidden past arrives. And the third part tells a story of New York, or rather Zone Eight, in 2093, where the world is trying to recover after several severe pandemics and is governed by a totalitarian regime and where the granddaughter of a famous scientist tries to navigate through her life without her beloved grandpa and where she looks for an answer to the mystery of her husband’s disappearance.

First and second story jointly occupy 50% of the book and another half is devoted to the third story, which is told through 2 POVs - Zone Eight and the life of Charlie (the granddaughter) in 1993 and the letters of her grandfather to a mysterious friend somewhere in the UK during the period from 2050s to 2080s. Personally for me it was not the best choice of the organisation of the stories (I mean the third story was too long and made me bored and the first two truly had my full attention). While reading the third story I just wanted to skim the pages in order to see the ending. Only a couple of twists caught my attention again (some parts of several last chapters of the third part).

The biggest mystery for me was how the stories are connected. Eventually I had the thought that there were some intentional differences in terms of personalities, their age gap and different situations in which they build their relations (David and Charles). And Hawaii, of course. But while starting the book I imagined the connection in a different way. Probably I thought that would be several generations of a family.

In spite of the fact that the book deals with such heartbreaking topics as loneliness, depression, family drama, health issues, pandemics, totalitarian society, search for paradise, Eden etc. but we do not get the opportunity to get to know the characters more in order to get drawn to them and feel deep sympathy.

I felt kind of empty after two first stories, because I wanted to read more of them, I didn’t want them to end as fast as they did. While the third one left me slightly overwhelmed, completely opposite feelings. Probably the reason was that the third part deals among other things with pandemics and the totalitarian organisation of the world because of them. And depicting the pandemic is too painful nowadays, especially the future one(-s). This is a huuuge TW. At the same time I adored the ending of every single one of them, because of the way they were written. Here you see the meaning of the title “To Paradise” (and you know this moment when you see the title in the text and the puzzle clicks and you understand why the book was named in one way or another). The endings themselves are open, so technically you are free to guess how the stories end.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe that Hanya Yanagihara’s novels will become 21st century classics in the future and there are quite a few fans of her novels especially “A Little Life” which is my current read by the way and that she is a talented author. At the same time the third part made me feel like I was reading the novel which plot was invented by George Orwell (some dystopian moments gave me 1984 vibe), but he did not want to write a book himself so he was narrating the plot to Leo tolstoy and he was the one who put the book on paper in his extremely descriptive style. I do not mean this comparison as a disadvantage of Yanagihara’s novel, quite the opposite, this in my opinion makes the story different from many other dystopian books that are published nowadays.

Overall, I do not know how to rate this book. I would probably give it 3.5 stars. But since I can’t do this here, I will give 3 stars in total.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ecopy in exchange for an honest review!!!

Brilliant again! I have never discovered an author whose prose is so inexplicably compelling and whose lengthy books I am so eager to read. This is as painful and emotional to read as A Little Life, yet completely different. However, just as with her previous novel Yanagihara takes you to the edge of despair whilst weaving in just enough hope to keep you from falling.

Like A Little Life this will stay with me for a very long time. Yanagihara is masterful at building layer upon layer of profundity whilst enabling you to read with pace and enjoyment. A terrifying, moving and thought-provoking read.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

Once again, Hanya Yanagihara delivers a queer novel that stuns in its scope, depth and heft of meaning and is written with a breathtaking vision that is executed almost to perfection. It is as provocative as it is thought provoking.

To Paradise is a work in three parts: a loosely connected series of vignettes of American society across three centuries as imagined by the author. The first set in late 19th century, the second in the 1990s at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and the third a bleak, dystopian future just 40 to 60 years from the present day.

Each story is distinct and captivating but shares similar themes of male love, belonging, heritage, sacrifice and shame, along with the constant desire for a better life: the eponymous paradise. The characters are vividly depicted: whole and complex, endearing and frustrating, human to a fault.

Yanagihara’s prose vibrates and flows. To read it is be immersed, invested, carried on a journey. This is especially true of the final part, which takes up half the book’s 700 pages and portrays a world devastated by climate disaster and pandemics.

In this imagined future, the sole focus of every law, every activity, is the survival of the human race. Everything is rationed, from water to food to daily essentials. Everyone is monitored by the state. All sources of information are banned and freedom is a luxury long forgotten. It is the opposite of paradise. It is paradise lost. And humankind is to blame.

But it is in this sterile place that we find the beating heart of Yanagihara’s opus: the most beautifully wrought love story between grandfather and granddaughter. Charles: the doting, protective grandfather, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for his “little cat”. And his namesake: innocent, damaged Charlie, a childlike woman who is lost without her grandfather’s compass to guide her.

A heart wrenching ode to the power of love and a fitting end to this majestic work of fiction.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5

This book is most definitely not A Little Life. It didn’t move me in the ways I was expecting it to. The first book within it became interesting about 3/4 of the way through, the beginning setting the characters into their places. As it was set in a very different era it didn’t feel as relevant to me, but I did feel for David and his emotional issues with regards to relationships. The ending of this section felt poignant and ended in a good place.

Book 2 didn’t grab me at all, I didn’t feel any kind of pull towards any of the characters, no affiliation with them and really struggled to connect with any of the concepts held within it.

Book 3 started off promisingly but came up short.

All in all I’m not sure I really enjoyed it as much as I was hoping to.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

It's impossible to discuss Hanya Yanagihara's third novel To Paradise without first touching on her previous novel - A Little Life. During my (reading) lifetime I cannot think of another novel which has sold as many copies (around 250,000 in the UK alone) or provoked so many articles, reviews and discussion (again, in the UK perhaps Shuggie Bain and Beautiful World, Where Are You might be close runners up in this regard) despite - or in spite of - clocking in at over 800 pages. I love that fiction is still able to do this when I think general discourse (at least pre-pandemic anyway -- anecdotally I'd say more people have started reading since Covid came on the scene) is that people are reading less than they perhaps used to, independent bookshops are going out of business etc.

I know A Little Life was divisive but I absolutely loved it. I was fully immersed in the (awfully sad) world and characters Yanagihara created in that novel, and the emotional depth of the story. So it is with a heavy heart that I say that I felt none of that about To Paradise.

I should caveat this with saying that I don't think it's fair to compare the books, as they are about totally different subject matter/themes - by and large - and employ different structures. All the above was to say that I expected to finish To Paradise with some kind of emotional reaction to the story, but unfortunately that did not happen.

The book is separated into three sections, all book-like in their length, set in 1893, 1993 and 2093. I won't say too much more about the plot but in each time period characters with similar or the same names crop up, albeit in different iterations and situations.

The first section was my favourite, and if rating them individually I'd probably give this section 3.5 / 5. Whilst a quite straightforward story I was invested in David and what would come of his relationship. The second section would probably be rated 2.5 / 5 - I liked how it started off but then it went in a direction I don't think really worked. And finally, section 3. This is where I lost all interest in what was going on - a 1984-esque dystopia with little world building which failed to hold my interest at all. I'd rate this section 1.5 / 5. I failed to see how this section added anything to the narrative and what had taken place in the first and second part and nearly DNFed it several times (settling on skim reading sections to get through it, which I don't like to do!).

I will be interested to see/hear what other readers make of Yanagihara's third novel. I don't think it will quite be what anyone was expecting, and I feel that large sections could have been cut out without compromising on the story. What disappointed me the most though was that I found most of the characters largely forgettable (with the exception of those in the first section), and I didn't think the epistolary device worked -- way more tell than show going on here. I will still check out her first novel (The People in the Trees) as this sounds more up my street.

Brilliant like the rest of her novels. The story itself is smartly crafted, the characters are deeply rich and relatable in many ways. It's definitely different from 'A Little Life' hence why readers should be aware of that otherwise they'll be disappointed. Definitely recommend.

4.5 stars

I feel it is important to admit from the outset that I have not read A Little Life, it is on my shelf but To Paradise is my first experience picking up a Hanya Yanagihara book. Therefore I have no comparison, I went in with no set expectations and I glean from other reviews I have read this is a blessing. This is not meant to be a follow up to A Little Life it is it’s own piece of work asking to be judged on its own merit.

To Paradise is set mainly in New York split into 3 distinct sections each 100 years apart. We start in 1893 in a reimagined independent New York State where same sex marriage is the norm. Then we jump to 1993 during the AIDS outbreak a young Hawaiian man lives with an older wealthier man hiding from his past. Before finally finishing in 2093 in a dystopian world where personal and social freedoms have been sacrificed in a bid to control wave upon wave of pandemics.

I understand her inspiration for the book is based on the concept of paradise being not for everyone but for the chosen few and what are we willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it.

Each section is its own individual story but contains linked aspects, the same character names are used but in different ways and the same house in New York act as familiar constants. At first this was a little confusing but once I got used to it I loved seeing how each character would be reincarnated within the new story.

Each part however ends abruptly and you are left craving more, desperate for some scraps of information, I was left in anguish over the lack of resolution or solid answers. The genius of Hanya’s writing is that she creates characters which become ingrained into your very being and mourn their loss often forgetting these are not real!

“I knew it was foolish, because they weren’t even real people, but I thought about them often. I wanted to know what had become of them.”

This book is epic in its scope and my enjoyment increased exponentially as I progressed… I liked the first section, I loved the second and simply adored the third! If I’m honest I wish it was 700 pages of just section 3 I loved this part so much.

You guys! I really really tried to like this book. But I clearly had no idea about what I was getting myself into. While the writing was as pristine as one can expect from the author, it all felt a big drag. Like the book is written the way for the sake of it. There is a sense of detachment that I sensed throughout the book 1 and it nearly pushed me into a slump. And I can't move past the book 1. I'll update my review once I get back to finish it. But somehow I doubt that will happen soon. Maybe Yanagihara is not for me. Woman can write like seriously write. My personal qualms aside, I think this one will dominate the prize lists this year. I hope she wins Booker for To Paradise.