“He heard the siren song of family – how it pulls you despite all sense; how it forces you to discard your convictions, your righteous self hood, in favor of profound dependence.” -Chloe Benjamin
Cover Summary:
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?
It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children–four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness–sneak out to hear their fortunes.
The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel struggles to maintain security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.
Both a dazzling family love story and a sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
My Overall Opinion:
I would rate this book a 5/5!
I absolutely loved the message behind this book. The idea that if you know the date of your death it could do nothing but make you either crazy in anticipation or make you live your life a bit too safe and miss out on risky opportunities that could benefit you in the long run.
Chloe Benjamin puts readers into the world with the Gold children and the way the book is broken up between all of their point of views not only in the writing but in their lives in genius!
I discovered this book from the Penguin Random House Instagram page and I highly recommend following them to find more great reads like this one, but also many more that they post about almost daily.
If you are interested in picking up a copy of The Immortalists follow the links below!
Amazon: starting at $6, Barnes and Noble: starting at $12
Want to know more about the author and the inspiration behind The Immortalists? Click here to read more on Chloe Benjamin's website!
