Reviews with content warning for Medical content - Vers le paradis

A colossus that I think only Hanya Yanagihara could give us. A Little Life's strongest quality is the way it champions friendship and its complexities, but in To Paradise, she presents friendship as both necessary and a salvation while fickle and inconsistent. Her characters either can't decide if they believe in people, or their actions show that how we connect with and cherish people are all we have in common. The threads through the stories are that of love and its contours. We have romance, delusion, and disease.

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Another sadly beautiful book, it is it a beautifully sad book?, by Hanya Yanagihara. Haunting. It’ll start with me a long time, just like A little Life. Grateful to have read it.

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wormgirl's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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aseel_reads's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

This book was way too long for what it tried to deliver. I did like the message/the whole point of the future pov but I do think there were some messy mental health rep, that bordered on problematic.

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isobel_laura's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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nibs's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book. I was mad at it in its third quarter for its intense surprise pandemic-ness, but it really pulled together in the last quarter with more dystopian themes. There are some things that frustrated me about this book - a lot was to do with feeling blindsided about the pandemic content (it doesn't appear until halfway through and is very heavy on the pandemic content in the secone half) and it all felt too close due to covid. I took multiple extended breaks and almost DNFed at 75%. But I'm glad I finished it.
This book has an epic scope. I want to reread it some day and further map out its intricacies. Its complex and beautiful and philosophical.

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rachaelwho's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Could've used a firmer editor. Lots of unnecessary repetition, and a dickensian tendency to over-describe everything. Would've been more impactful, I think, at about a third shorter.

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jourdanicus's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

What a long read.

I originally picked this up because I was intrigued by a story in which same-sex marriage was legalized in the US in the 1800s. This book was so much more than that (and I'd hope so at 700+ pages/30+ hours), for better or worse. I don't think that summary does it justice. Really, I see this as 3 separate books. I found myself wishing for more clear connections between the 3 stories. I know the characters were all related in some way, but I think that could have been made more explicit to bring more cohesion to the stories.

Other than that I struggle to come up with any complaints, which is surprising given that I do not tend to enjoy or even reach for books longer than 400 pages. I pretty much love any kind of character study, and this was much more character- than plot-centric. Book I, being the most focused on the topic of legal/normalized same-sex marriage, doesn't stand out to me the most, though it was enjoyable. Book II, about Lipo-Wao-Nahele, was such a gorgeous story and could totally have stood on its own; I'm a sucker for compelling parent/child relationships. Book III was a bit too depressing for me to have read during a current pandemic, but Charles was an interesting (if somewhat unlikeable) character, and I was most endeared to Charlie.

I could have done with more female characters for my taste - at least with more representation than just

mothers who abandon their partner and child

. But I can accept that not every book is going to check every single box for me. This one did enough to keep me engaged through to the end, and that's more than I can say for some that are nowhere near as lengthy.

Now going to look up a family tree of the characters so I can finally figure all that out, lol.

Edit: Can't believe I forgot to mention that the cast for the audiobook narration was fantastic. That's a big part of what kept me engaged. I definitely recommend this book on audio over other formats.

Another edit: Oh, so apparently the characters were NOT all related, and just had a lot of the same names? I don't know. That's just confusing. Sweeping family saga this one definitely is not.

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