I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was prepared to be as emotionally devastated as I was by A Little Life, but I was relieved that this time I wasn't crying while reading this in public. To be clear, that doesn't mean this book isn't affecting--its dystopian themes and allusions to the COVID pandemic will bring up some intense emotions for today's readers--but it is not relentless.

By writing three novels smashed into one, all of which recycle and connect names, relationships, and character attributes, Hanya Yanagihara demonstrates her superb writing prowess. The first, which takes place at the end of the nineteenth century, grabbed my attention from the beginning with an exciting sense of alternative history within the traditional fin de siècle storyline. There's a sense of romantic drama that really resonated with me, a messy human who devours romance novels whenever she can. The second didn't work quite as well. The storyline of David living during the AIDS crisis drew me in, but the more ethereal epistolary part really took me out of the story. The third is by far the most ambitious and strongest of the novels-within-the-novel. By taking place in the 2040s-2090s, Yanagihara portrays a dystopian future that feels more realistic given our current circumstances and, therefore, makes the plot all the more terrifying.

I won't give more away; suffice it to say, this is worth the time commitment should you choose to read it