To Paradise

 Fiction by Hanya Yanagihara

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Clocking in at just over seven hundred pages, this book was not really one novel. It had three parts set in three different times, none of which ever really connected to the other ones, except that different people had the same names. Indeed, Parts Two and Three actually had two parts in each!

This author really makes you believe in and care about her characters, and it was that which which kept me reading, although the disconnectedness of the stories was off-putting. Each part would draw me in and I'd want to keep reading and find out what happened to this particular guy named David Bingham (yeah, there were at least five different ones). Alas, each time the story would abruptly stop at a climactic point and begin again with a different person in a different time.

I don't know whether to recommend this book or not, to be honest. I actually read a few reviews and they were mostly on the positive side. But nobody mentioned the fact that the author never told you the end of anyone's story!! To me, the answer to the question "What happened?" is the most important reason to read a book. And I don't know what happened to ANY of these guys!

If this sounds like an unpleasant reading experience to you, you're not wrong. But the overall effect was thought-provoking. And, as I said, the characters were so compelling... 

I also read by this author: A Little Life