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jessicaxmaria 's review for:
The Immortalists
by Chloe Benjamin
What a journey. I loved a lot about this book, but feel conflicted upon looking back.
Lots of spoilers, as my mind is still touching on so many things as I finished the book this morning...
First, what a premise. It asks the reader quickly: what if you knew the date of your death? And then throughout the book studies that question in four different cases, but also almost goes back and forth on making the reader believe the premise or not. It comes together in the end in a conversation between Varya and Gertie, but I'm still wavering on whether that end was successful.
Simon's section was riveting and heartbreaking and perhaps a little cliche (as soon as he became a sexually active teenage runaway in SF, well, I predicted his fate), but I still felt it deeply. Klara's resonated a lot with me as she described becoming a mother, but it became a little wobbly when the close third person narration was revealed to be unreliable. Important things seemed to be alluded to but not explicitly revealed, so her death seemed surprising and shocking. Both these sections were completely engrossing. I found myself crying often. I found myself wanting to call my brother, often.
Daniel and Varya's sections were less powerful, and maybe that's okay. Daniel's story was a little hokey, a little weird in the end and there were a lot of questions I had about his character who of the four wasn't fully realized in my estimation. The best parts of his section were learning about what happened to Raj and Ruby after Klara. I was incredibly intrigued when the FBI detective came back on the scene, but I didn't appreciate how his return also led to Daniel's demise.
I like Varya's reunion with her son, and it was written in a painfully great way. But at this point in the novel, I'd read so much heartache and pain and... there was so little goodness given to these characters. There must have been goodness, but the reader was given so much of the painful aspects of their lives I wondered if that's all the author wanted to impart: life is pain, whether you know your death date or not.
I liked the writing and the journey (though all so uneven), and even though I'm not sure the end provides any answers, maybe that's the philosophical point.
3.5/4, though rounding up because it obviously gave me so much to think about and consider.
Lots of spoilers, as my mind is still touching on so many things as I finished the book this morning...
First, what a premise. It asks the reader quickly: what if you knew the date of your death? And then throughout the book studies that question in four different cases, but also almost goes back and forth on making the reader believe the premise or not. It comes together in the end in a conversation between Varya and Gertie, but I'm still wavering on whether that end was successful.
Simon's section was riveting and heartbreaking and perhaps a little cliche (as soon as he became a sexually active teenage runaway in SF, well, I predicted his fate), but I still felt it deeply. Klara's resonated a lot with me as she described becoming a mother, but it became a little wobbly when the close third person narration was revealed to be unreliable. Important things seemed to be alluded to but not explicitly revealed, so her death seemed surprising and shocking. Both these sections were completely engrossing. I found myself crying often. I found myself wanting to call my brother, often.
Daniel and Varya's sections were less powerful, and maybe that's okay. Daniel's story was a little hokey, a little weird in the end and there were a lot of questions I had about his character who of the four wasn't fully realized in my estimation. The best parts of his section were learning about what happened to Raj and Ruby after Klara. I was incredibly intrigued when the FBI detective came back on the scene, but I didn't appreciate how his return also led to Daniel's demise.
I like Varya's reunion with her son, and it was written in a painfully great way. But at this point in the novel, I'd read so much heartache and pain and... there was so little goodness given to these characters. There must have been goodness, but the reader was given so much of the painful aspects of their lives I wondered if that's all the author wanted to impart: life is pain, whether you know your death date or not.
I liked the writing and the journey (though all so uneven), and even though I'm not sure the end provides any answers, maybe that's the philosophical point.
3.5/4, though rounding up because it obviously gave me so much to think about and consider.