A Little Life is my favorite novel, but I rarely recommend it to others. When I do, I warn them that it will break their hearts; that Hanya Yanagihara will make them fall in love with a character and destroy him over and over again.

In To Paradise the characters are damaged, but they aren't destroyed. They make their way through places and times that aren't made for people like them, and they grab onto the hope that there is something better. The gut punch in To Paradise isn't what happens to the characters; it's what has happened to our world. In the last story, especially, it's much too close for comfort.

I loved it. I loved A Little Life so much that I have never been able to read it again, for fear that it wouldn't stand up to my memory of it. I love To Paradise differently. I can't wait to read it again, to sit with it longer, to think about it more, to notice new details and ask different questions.