Yanagihara, H: To Paradise From the Author of A Little Life

To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about Yanagihara's latest novel and I thought very hard about whether to rate it with a 3- or 4-star review. The book is divided into three parts, which cover a time period over 300 years and present the reader with alternate realities in the United States. Whereas the first two stories felt lengthy at times, I was absolutely engrossed and captivated by the third part. Even though the three stories can be read independently of each other and you could easily skip the first two in order to just read the dystopian third, it is rewarding to battle your way through the whole book. It is less the fact that Yanagihara used the same names and similar character traits for her protagonists to link the three stories but their obvious recurring themes and motives. Yanagihara asks topical and timely questions in relation to class privilege, the scope of true freedom in matters of love and sexuality and where to set ethical boundaries with regard to sacrificing the needs of the individual for the greater good. This is definitely not a book that can be read in a haste as it requires a certain amount of time, devotion and energy in order to fully grasp the purpose of Yanagiharas's gigantic narrative scope.