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A review by picadillette
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.5
I read Octavia Butler in class in high school for an English project and became repulsed. The author writes with main characters as thinly veiled versions of herself, except they are the survivors and spiritual leaders in a post apocalyptic world (ok, at least that's what I remember from reading them 15 years ago).
HY perhaps is doing a more sophisticated version of the same thing. While her characters are gay men instead of women, she's answering the question - if I were beautiful and yet had suffered unmeasurably, would I still be loved? Stealing this completely from a Vox review on the book. In A Little Life the relationships and characters themselves didn't feel exploitative. It felt like she knew them, and also was just exploring them throughout the book. The part that felt exploitative wasthe end when you started to realize how in detail she was going to go into things like child sexual exploitation and child and adult self harm . While it is more obfuscated, I find that idea about as repulsive as I did in Octavio Butler's work 15 years ago.
However. Her world-building (just slightly off from reality, with the exception of 2093 - although that really remains to be seen) is stunning, the writing flows easily, I read the thing in about 24 hours and was left with feelings. So while I can't quite recommend it, I can't say it wasn't worthwhile.
HY perhaps is doing a more sophisticated version of the same thing. While her characters are gay men instead of women, she's answering the question - if I were beautiful and yet had suffered unmeasurably, would I still be loved? Stealing this completely from a Vox review on the book. In A Little Life the relationships and characters themselves didn't feel exploitative. It felt like she knew them, and also was just exploring them throughout the book. The part that felt exploitative was
However. Her world-building (just slightly off from reality, with the exception of 2093 - although that really remains to be seen) is stunning, the writing flows easily, I read the thing in about 24 hours and was left with feelings. So while I can't quite recommend it, I can't say it wasn't worthwhile.