The Immortalists - Chloe Benjamin

The Immortalists is a book that ends up on a lot of Pride month reading lists because one of the four main characters is gay. It's been on my kindle for a while and I've been meaning to read it for a while. It is not, however, Own Voices, which is one of the goals I had for reading books during Pride. So I missed the mark on this for my own goals. But that's not to say that I don't think The Immortalists is a worthy read.

I think I've said before that I love sibling books. I love exploration of the sibling relationship. I have only one sister, so larger sibling groups are a mystery to me. The Immortalists explores four siblings from New York who visit a fortune teller to learn their future. Eldest Varya, Daniel, Klara and youngest Simon are all given the dates of their deaths. We get limited views of the each sibling but learn that Simon is told he will die "very young" and Klara at 31, Daniel in his 40s and Varya at 88. The book then spends 1/4 of its pages with each sibling.

Simon is first and his journey is heartbreaking as he rushes to fit as much life as he can prior to the early death predicted in his youth. I ripped through this section of the book. I loved Simon very much and his young and tragic life were particularly compelling. The knowledge of the dates of their deaths compel the characters in odd and fascinating ways.

Are they doomed to the dates they were given? Or does the knowledge of the date create a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a question that is played with and explored in the story without actually giving a real answer. Benjamin lets her readers reach their own conclusions. The Immortalists is part character dissection and part psychological exploration. It tells the story of the four siblings without resorting to odd narrative devices like The Last Romantics (you can read that review here). The characters are compelling and the book is well written. 

4/5 Stars.