Thank you to @doubledaybooks for sending me a copy of one of my most highly anticipated books of the year, To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara. The prospect of writing even just rambling thoughts on this book has felt daunting for a number of reasons. For years, I’ve counted A Little Life as my favorite book, and it was the first book I posted on bookstagram. I’ve been anxiously awaiting another book from Yanagihara ever since. To say I had high hopes for To Paradise is an understatement. I wanted and expected it to fill the hole in my heart left by A Little Life.

This book was not what I expected. It was confusing at times. It didn’t pack the emotional punch of A Little Life - for me it did not even come close.

To Paradise is broken into three parts. The first takes place in an alternative American history in 1893, where the south seceded from the United States, but so did New York, as part of the Free States. In the Free States, gay marriage is legal and frequently arranged by prominent families. However, racism is still rampant, as Black people are not welcomed but merely permitted to pass through on their way elsewhere. This is a story choice that I did not understand. The story barely addresses this aspect of society, instead focusing on a young, single, but unfortunately sickly member of a wealthy family, David Bingham. The family lives in a home on Washington Square. David’s grandfather wants him to wed an older man from another well-to-do family, but instead David falls for a poor music teacher, and hides it from his family.

If the alternative history is confusing to you, no worries, because you don’t really need to care about it for the rest of the book. In part 2, another unrelated David Bingham is a young Hawaiian man living in the Washington Square home with his older lover slash coworker slash maybe boss? Charles isn’t David’s direct boss, but is on that level. David is a descendent of Hawaiian royalty, but had a falling out with his family - particularly, his dad. He says he can never go back to Hawaii. The second half of this part of the book is from his dad’s perspective. It starts off written as what seems like a letter, but is clearly not a letter, as it meanders for a long time through his dad’s naivety and involvement with groups that have opposed the colonization of Hawaii and want to restore the Hawaiian monarchy.

Part 3 takes place in the age of pandemics. We learn of at least 6 major pandemics. The perspective alternates between a researcher who works on infectious diseases and a young woman named Charlie who lives in an apartment in the Washington Square townhouse. The researcher writes letters to an old friend who now works for the British government. Charlie lives with her husband, but their marriage was arranged and they do not have a romantic relationship. Charlie was the victim of one of the pandemics as a child, and the treatment left her damaged. She is described as being extremely serious and literal, and without imagination after the treatment.

Here are some of my specific qualms, trying to keep it spoiler-free. The characters are all incredibly naive, to the point where it is truly not believable. The plots of each section hinge on their ability to be taken advantage of. The writing seems to forget its own structure - for example, letters contain fully quoted dialogue and fail to address the recipient until the very end. Having unrelated characters in each section with the same names added literally nothing but confusion to the book. The alternate history that was painstakingly described in part 1 really does not matter in subsequent parts. In the third section, a “medication causes changes in personality and lack of imagination” really felt akin to “vaccines cause autism” and that is not okay. Is that what Yanagihara thinks? I was so uncomfortable with the whole third section because of that.

Another thing I don’t understand about Yanagihara’s writing choices (now that I’ve read two of her three books) is why the majority of the romantic relationships depicted are unhappy, often toxic, relationships between gay men. I think it’s okay for authors to write characters outside of their identity, but when that seems to be the main thing that someone writes, and the characters are all suffering, and the relationships are all unhappy, in my opinion, it starts to verge on voyeuristic.

The good: the writing draws you in. There’s no doubt that Yanagihara has a way with words. The stories get under your skin and stick with you, regardless of how much you dislike them.

This is going to be a very talked about book. For me, it was a very disappointing book. It has made me reconsider my feelings on A Little Life. I’m curious to hear what others will have to say, and how this book will be received overall.