To Paradise

I have not finished reading the book, but it is a wonderful story (or set of stories, as there are three). I am glad to have seen someone reading it before my purchase.

I applauded with deep emotions for Yanagihara being that rare author whounderstands the true nature of Hawaii's history instead of the usualtourist's point of view.I was breathless in the Hawaii section for the author being a poet/ historian. The other sections of the book were mesmerizing and thought provoking because of the names of the characters. Who would have thought of such a brilliant structure in story telling. May this story never become a reality.When the author became the editor of the Sunday NYTimes magazine, I had hopedshe would still find time for a third book after her first novel. She didn't let me down with thismasterpiece. Am not saying much of the plot as I do not want to give it away.

Hanya Yanagihara is one of my favourite authors. Though, as much as I loved her two previous novels, I have to admit that this book was not for me.It was well and for the most part even beautifully written, and I still maintain that the author is one of the most capable at writing great prose. However, that is almost the only praise I can heap on this one.Because this book is seriously flawed in regard to narrative structure as well as plot and storyline development. For starters, there basically wasn't any overarching plot whatsoever. The book is divided into three parts, each taking place a century apart, thus spanning 300 years in total. In contrast to what the blurp promised, however, there was basically nothing that connected the characters and the plots of these three individual strands with each other, making this book more a collection of three stand-alone novels rather than one with an overarching storyline.Furthermore, this book is SO SLOW in terms of pacing, even for a primarily character-centered story, and as a result I was very often bored by it. Admittedly, all three timelines had great concepts and interesting moments, and the third part was more gripping than the previous ones, but despite the fact that the author is great at writing fleshed out, complicated characters and making them very human indeed, I never once connected with any of them and just couldn't become invested in the story.Not a bad book in total, but a sore disappointment for me, as I expected more from this author.

Muy tedioso…