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krishnaja 's review for:
To Paradise
by Hanya Yanagihara
I will always read anything that [a: Hanya Yanagihara|6571447|Hanya Yanagihara|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1421881815p2/6571447.jpg] writes till the end of my days. I had brought this book as soon as it was published, but I ended up abandoning it in the middle. Not because it was essentially bad, but because I was in the middle of a reading slump.
My mind kept nagging me to pick this back up after a few days, and I had to comply. I read the rest yesterday, and I am grateful I did so. These stories are something unique, nothing alike, but they share the same warmth. This book consists of three parts, each of them telling a different tale. Even though I liked all three of them, my favorite turned out to be the second one. It puzzles me why so many people termed it as the one they least liked.
In the first story, David, the one on which the story is centered, is asked to marry an older man by his grandfather. It takes place in the late 19th century, and it seems as though everyone may love whomever they wish. Homosexual affairs are legal and so very common. Everything would have gone smoothly if David didn't end up falling for another man.
The second story surrounds another man, by the same name, David, who is in a clandestine affair with a married man, and takes place a hundred years later. We also get to know about David's father, who is now ill and bedridden.
The third story makes up about half of the entire story and is about a woman whose husband disappears mysteriously while she is still recovering from her grandfather's demise, which happened eight years prior. This happens a hundred years after the previous story, where the world is under totalitarian rule and people are forced to get married to the other sex for reproduction purposes. Grandfather, David, writes letters to his lover throughout this story and we get to read them. This story was horrific, and as someone who has homosexual tendencies, it petrified me.
This book was unlike anything I have read previously, and I know that the writing structure didn't work for some people, but it certainly did for me. Yanagihara writes splendidly, and the richness of her writing is blended beautifully into the story from start to finish. I felt as though these stories were in desperate need to be told, and Yanagihara did that with absolute perfection.
Utopia might as well be the absurdest of myths we have been told. Yanagihara reminds us that it is so; from stories featuring people of all sorts, in worlds where everything is seemingly perfect when the truth is far from it. Somebody had told me once, Utopia and dystopia — aren't they the same, after all?, and maybe that is the same question this book is rooted onto.
These stories explore a lot of topics, the major ones would be relationships and individuality. I enjoyed reading these, immensely so. Even though I felt like this book dragged at some parts of the first story, that might as well be the only complaint I have regarding this book. I was immersed in many characters I had the opportunity to know, and I can tell you that there is a lot of people worth knowing here.
To conclude, [b: To Paradise|57739876|To Paradise|Hanya Yanagihara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628100349l/57739876._SY75_.jpg|90439453] is a masterfully written book. It cannot be compared to [b: A Little Life|22822858|A Little Life|Hanya Yanagihara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446469353l/22822858._SY75_.jpg|42375710], not at all, and there is no necessity for it to be anything like the other. These two books are vastly different from each other and do not read [b: To Paradise|57739876|To Paradise|Hanya Yanagihara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1628100349l/57739876._SY75_.jpg|90439453] expecting it to be another [b: A Little Life|22822858|A Little Life|Hanya Yanagihara|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446469353l/22822858._SY75_.jpg|42375710], for it is not. You will be disappointed then. David is no Jude, and Edward is no William - but that doesn't make this book any less cherishable. This is an immersive read that tells stories bound to stay with you for a long, long time.