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jamiejars 's review for:
To Paradise
by Hanya Yanagihara
i have a lot of thoughts and most of them are not positive
edit: ok sorry my thoughts are a little scrambled but i had time to think and here they are
i loved a little life and i hated the people in the trees. i put off reading this for a year because i was afraid that i was going to put all this energy into reading a 700+ page book without any payoff.
my major (initial) issue with this book is the structuring. three separate stories that have no relation to one another besides the names of the characters and the home in washington square park. it's a cool concept, yes, but ultimately did not do.. what yanagihara wanted it to do, IMO. it felt like she had three different novel ideas that could have been individual books that she never fully fleshed out, and instead centered the story on this one home to create some kind of link between the stories? i hate that each story is left on such a cliffhanger and we get no clarity or any kind of explanation of the characters lives or stories
in the first story, the rewriting of america's history felt... uncomfortable to say the least? in this 1890's version of america, the south succeeded from the US bc of gay marriage; which, interesting, though yanagihara doesn't rly touch on the subject of race in any meaningful way, which feels... weird. we follow a character who is boring, a gay man who wants to leave the safety of the free states that his family fought (and paid $$$) for, to follow a mysterious, poor (and possibly evil) man out west, where homosexuality is illegal. just when his story finally starts to get interesting, we finally reach the conflict in the story, the narrative is cut. we never return to this story. just when it's starting to get good!!!
the second part of the story takes place in 1990's, aids epidemic in NYC. the story is split in two; the first about a relationship between a young gay hawaiian man dating an older white lawyer (again living in the same washington square apartment. also all the characters throughout each book have the SAME NAME when they're completely different characters which was incredibly confusing and weird. like why not just change the names i don't understand why she chose to do this) the second part of the story is a .. letter? the mind of? the hawaiian man's father who is about to die. his story is so pointless; him lamenting about the life he lived in which he does absolutely nothing in terms of making his own choices. he's manipulated by this other man to live off the land /essentially become homeless for no apparent reason? and instead of leaving (he's given MANY opportunities TO LEAVE and expresses multiple times he WANTS TO LEAVE he continues to stay because he can't make any decision) this was my least favorite story out of the three
the final story takes up at least half of the book, and at the longest story, takes place in a dystopian 209o's version of america. i actually really liked this story and kind of wish we just had this one because with some editing i think this could've been really good. at the same time, i'm so over reading about pandemics 'post-covid'; especially a facist police state created out of necessity after 4 or 5 pandemics throughout the 21st century. (ALSO the main character, who at one point was a lively little girl, becomes sick during one of those pandemics and she gets a vaccine that completely alters her personality and also sterilizes her and i was like ok.. it's giving anti-vax???) i did like the story line and the switching between timeslines/the letters but like, i don't understand why this alone couldn't have been a book. PLUS, at the central conflict, THE STORY ENDS! we don't get any clarity, no closure!
i am sad that i disliked this book so much because i do think hanya yanagihara is a great novelist, and i do like her writing and the emotional depth she builds for her characters. but this... was incredibly disappointing to me
edit: ok sorry my thoughts are a little scrambled but i had time to think and here they are
i loved a little life and i hated the people in the trees. i put off reading this for a year because i was afraid that i was going to put all this energy into reading a 700+ page book without any payoff.
my major (initial) issue with this book is the structuring. three separate stories that have no relation to one another besides the names of the characters and the home in washington square park. it's a cool concept, yes, but ultimately did not do.. what yanagihara wanted it to do, IMO. it felt like she had three different novel ideas that could have been individual books that she never fully fleshed out, and instead centered the story on this one home to create some kind of link between the stories? i hate that each story is left on such a cliffhanger and we get no clarity or any kind of explanation of the characters lives or stories
in the first story, the rewriting of america's history felt... uncomfortable to say the least? in this 1890's version of america, the south succeeded from the US bc of gay marriage; which, interesting, though yanagihara doesn't rly touch on the subject of race in any meaningful way, which feels... weird. we follow a character who is boring, a gay man who wants to leave the safety of the free states that his family fought (and paid $$$) for, to follow a mysterious, poor (and possibly evil) man out west, where homosexuality is illegal. just when his story finally starts to get interesting, we finally reach the conflict in the story, the narrative is cut. we never return to this story. just when it's starting to get good!!!
the second part of the story takes place in 1990's, aids epidemic in NYC. the story is split in two; the first about a relationship between a young gay hawaiian man dating an older white lawyer (again living in the same washington square apartment. also all the characters throughout each book have the SAME NAME when they're completely different characters which was incredibly confusing and weird. like why not just change the names i don't understand why she chose to do this) the second part of the story is a .. letter? the mind of? the hawaiian man's father who is about to die. his story is so pointless; him lamenting about the life he lived in which he does absolutely nothing in terms of making his own choices. he's manipulated by this other man to live off the land /essentially become homeless for no apparent reason? and instead of leaving (he's given MANY opportunities TO LEAVE and expresses multiple times he WANTS TO LEAVE he continues to stay because he can't make any decision) this was my least favorite story out of the three
the final story takes up at least half of the book, and at the longest story, takes place in a dystopian 209o's version of america. i actually really liked this story and kind of wish we just had this one because with some editing i think this could've been really good. at the same time, i'm so over reading about pandemics 'post-covid'; especially a facist police state created out of necessity after 4 or 5 pandemics throughout the 21st century. (ALSO the main character, who at one point was a lively little girl, becomes sick during one of those pandemics and she gets a vaccine that completely alters her personality and also sterilizes her and i was like ok.. it's giving anti-vax???) i did like the story line and the switching between timeslines/the letters but like, i don't understand why this alone couldn't have been a book. PLUS, at the central conflict, THE STORY ENDS! we don't get any clarity, no closure!
i am sad that i disliked this book so much because i do think hanya yanagihara is a great novelist, and i do like her writing and the emotional depth she builds for her characters. but this... was incredibly disappointing to me