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A review by worm_food
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
5.0
"We create patterns because that's the only way we can explain the world but in reality nothing happens for a reason, we create stories because that is the only way we can perceive our position in the eternal" and "everything matters, every choice you make matters so disgustingly much" are the two realities whose absurd coexistence defines our lives. The things that make life worth living are the things you will most likely suffer for, but this doesn't mean they're the things that Make your Suffering. At the same time, you CANT NOT have these things - craving them is a hunger much, much older than society as we know it.
What is suffering but choosing to love, over and over and over again, when love is deemed impossible? What is sacrifice but submitting to that hunger, whole, placing your faith in the hands of a thankless god because that's the only choice you have? What is desire, without the fear and embarrassment that come with its uninhibited expression?
Strip down humanity, and you will be left with longing. People will always be people, our rituals, our names, our essences, always have and will continue to always be part of something vast, something we can never fully comprehend. No review I'd ever write could do this book justice. Coming up with it, writing it, but most impossibly letting it go is something only Hanya Yanagihara could do. Her best work, and possibly my favorite book of all time to date. I'm glad it exists. I will never let it go.
What is suffering but choosing to love, over and over and over again, when love is deemed impossible? What is sacrifice but submitting to that hunger, whole, placing your faith in the hands of a thankless god because that's the only choice you have? What is desire, without the fear and embarrassment that come with its uninhibited expression?
Strip down humanity, and you will be left with longing. People will always be people, our rituals, our names, our essences, always have and will continue to always be part of something vast, something we can never fully comprehend. No review I'd ever write could do this book justice. Coming up with it, writing it, but most impossibly letting it go is something only Hanya Yanagihara could do. Her best work, and possibly my favorite book of all time to date. I'm glad it exists. I will never let it go.