2.5/5 stars rounded down. This book has put me in a reading slump that I sincerely hope I will recover from. I have read A Little Life and The People in the Trees. I really enjoyed both, but A Little Life, as abysmal and emotionally draining as it was, was one of my five star reads from last year. I guess my expectations were very high for To Paradise. It started off strong. I enjoyed reading about David and Edward and their story. Davis was very high-strung and I understood that behavior because I, myself, am the same way. The second story was boring, for lack of a better word. I found myself not wanting to listen and avoided this book for days at a time. The second story has a very long letter from father to son; it almost seems inconceivable that someone would write a letter that long and detailed. Do not get me wrong, I love how Hanya Yanagihara writes, but it would have been more realistic if the letter from the father was not chapters long. Maybe it was a long process for the father to write, but it was droning. I could not relate to any of the characters in story two. They were essentially spoiled rich people making up their own problems. The third story was okay, even though it was anticlimactic, and the secrets were not really that interesting or surprising.

I like the idea behind the book. I tried to understand why the book was written in such a way where the stories do not necessarily overlap or connect in any way, except for the locations and names. I love the author and think this book was just an example of how everything an author puts out cannot be a winner. We would not know success without experiencing a failure. To Paradise was boring for me. I would not recommend this book. I love the author, but this was clearly not my favorite of her works.