Book Review: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Prompt: A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Brief synopsis ...





POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Prompt: A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge



Brief synopsis: There are four Gold children - Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon. As children, they visit a fortune teller who privately tells each of them the date of their deaths. The novel hence follows the four siblings in chapters of their lives, and how each of them lived in various ways because of the fortune they were given. It's a story of family, but ultimately it's about the things we wish to believe and how they impact our futures.




I heard so many truly amazing things about The Immortalists and was so excited to finally get the chance to read it. The premise of the novel sounded amazing, and I was expecting the novel to be more thriller than literary fiction, and even with that I had a hard time placing it into a genre.

I won't talk about what each sibling is doing with their lives as the book follows their individuals stories, because even though the actual description breaks it down, I was much more excited to learn about it as I wove through the chapters.

I think Simon's story was most fascinating to me, though I did read Klara's story on the plane to Las Vegas and that had me super intrigued, as well. Unfortunately, even though there were entire sections of the book dedicated to each sibling, I felt character development was lacking and we were only able to meet each sibling on-the-surface. I didn't love the timeline and how, for each sibling, it was set in a mere amount of weeks (or so), but would jump back to the past to follow-up on the story - it seemed confusing and I would find myself flipping back to make sure I didn't miss the transition period.

I really wanted to love this book, and I really did love the idea of it - but the novel fell short for me and it all seemed too abrupt.

You may really love it though, because a ton of people did - I just wasn't one of them.
















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2 comments

  1. This on has gotten a whole lot of hype, but I was never intrigued. Good thing I didn't waste my time!

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    1. A ton of people loved it, but I was incredibly underwhelmed. It just didn't cut it for me.

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