Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

4 reviews

nicoleisalwaysreading's review against another edition

challenging emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Cancer, Infidelity, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

rachaelwho's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War, Classism, and Deportation

katiemack's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

4.25

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was prepared to be as emotionally devastated as I was by A Little Life, but I was relieved that this time I wasn't crying while reading this in public. To be clear, that doesn't mean this book isn't affecting--its dystopian themes and allusions to the COVID pandemic will bring up some intense emotions for today's readers--but it is not relentless.

By writing three novels smashed into one, all of which recycle and connect names, relationships, and character attributes, Hanya Yanagihara demonstrates her superb writing prowess. The first, which takes place at the end of the nineteenth century, grabbed my attention from the beginning with an exciting sense of alternative history within the traditional fin de siècle storyline. There's a sense of romantic drama that really resonated with me, a messy human who devours romance novels whenever she can. The second didn't work quite as well. The storyline of David living during the AIDS crisis drew me in, but the more ethereal epistolary part really took me out of the story. The third is by far the most ambitious and strongest of the novels-within-the-novel. By taking place in the 2040s-2090s, Yanagihara portrays a dystopian future that feels more realistic given our current circumstances and, therefore, makes the plot all the more terrifying.

I won't give more away; suffice it to say, this is worth the time commitment should you choose to read it 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content

kkulhannie's review against another edition

challenging 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Outing, Toxic friendship, and Colonisation

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Abandonment, Alcohol, and War