This must be a hot take but I think this is one of my favourite Woolf novels. She seeks out to demystify all the work of her earlier novels, while creating this atmosphere totally unlike that which she has explored before. As the philosopher Taylor Swift once said, "it's miserable and magical, oh yeah" and truly, that is The Years. It is terrible and sad and beautiful and incredible and none of those emotions ever contradict each other. It is a minor, 400 page miracle.