Helpful Score: 2
This was a very difficult book to read, in that it is an extremely well-constructed meditation on moral and cultural relativism and ambiguity. In a way this book was a perfect companion to Euphoria by Lily King, addressing many of the ethical questions about historical anthropology in a way that King's volume did not (not to its detriment; Euphoria was an extremely well-written character-driven story). The structure, the plotting, the delivery...I had basically no complaints about the way this book was put together. Challenging, unsettling, and at times horrifying? Certainly. Worth the emotional struggle? Definitely. Hard to believe this is a debut novel-Yanagihara writes as though she's been putting out books for years.
