To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

To Paradise is not an easy book to give a synopsis for, reviewing it seems even trickier but I will give it my best shot.

I was incredibly excited for a new Yanagihara book. I’ve got mixed feelings on her other two novels where I don’t know what to rate them and can’t stop thinking about them either. You could say it’s a complicated relationship.

To Paradise is split intro 3 different sections that actually stand on its own. There’s threads holding them together so if you don’t read them all you wouldn’t know but overall you can read the 3rd only if you wanted to. I will say though that most reviews on Goodreads seem to favor the third one, whereas I favor the 2, 3, 1 order instead.

Motifs that repeat through the novel are the character names, Washington Square, illnesses and pandemics. As a reader, I kept wondering is David from book one the ancestor of David from book 2, etc? I was hoping for some such closure, something bigger that brings all the characters together.

Book 1 is the shortest, but has characters I’d like to revisit. Book 2 taught me a lot of things I didn’t know. Book 3 read like 1984 of the future and therefore left me with this weird, premonition, creepy sort of feeling.

The opening is alternate version of 19th century New York. I kept flipping back to check the dates and even attempting to remember anything about the Free States from history lessons at school. Took a while for me to get used to the idea of not everything being historically accurate (as far as I’m aware). The Hawaii plot was also quite fascinating, I know very little about the islands except they’re full of flora, fauna, volcanoes and luxury resorts, very little of its past. I’m intrigued enough to look further into Hawaii history.

Choices were made in terms of style, topics discussed, language, ‘procured children’, ‘imported children’, etc to name a few. Knowing the author’s style, pretty sure that was deliberate and it brought mixed emotions.

I was not a fan of the ending as we’re left wondering… One could argue a certain way for things to go is a lot more likely than the other, but I’d really like to know. I suppose as is, we’re left with some hope. Because, yes this book is sad, consider this your warning.

All things considered, I’ve rated this 4 stars. It’s more like a 3 in terms everything not quite coming together, but it is a 4 star seeing as I can’t stop thinking about it. I was hoping for a favorite of the year and whilst it’s true my expectations were high… it’s a new Yanagihara book, so of course they were high.

Have you read this book? What did you think?