I had wanted to read this book so very much and it started out great. What I wasn't prepared for was the very graphic sex. I don't think of myself as a prude but the entire chapter about Simon is about his sexuality and his blatant sexual encounters with anyone and everyone. Not for me :(

Since I didn't finish this book I will not post to public media because I believe this is probably a great book, just not for me and I wouldn't recommend it to my friends or customers

What would you do if you knew the date of your death? The Gold children find out these very details visiting a fortune teller during their youth. The Immortalists follows the lives of the siblings and their life decisions based on what they learned during their childhood. Such a gripping novel that you will want to slowly devour and enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for allowing me to review this book for an unbiased review.

I absolutely love the premise of this novel and that first sentence is what made me request the title. I couldn't wait to find out how knowing their death dates would shape each sibling.

We immediately start the journey of the the four siblings - Simon, Klara, Daniel and Varya- as the story jumps from the late 1960s to the early 1970s -1980s with Klara and Simons stories. Simon is the youngest and only 16 when his life takes a drastic change. He came across as quite a lost soul and out of the 4 he was my least favorite character. One of the huge positives for me about this book was the author's ability to bring each and every character to life. They were SO vivid and each was so well developed even though many were only briefly in the story. The authenticity of the characters and the flow of the narrative kept me reading through the first 35% when I wasn't sure if this would get above a 3 star rating for me. Long story short...it did!

I was so invested and immersed in the remainder  of the story that I flew through it in one sitting. I had to find out if the psychic's predictions were true and if so how would these characters I had come to like and care for die? I will be honest and say I found a resolution with Daniel way too convenient and not in alignment with what I knew about his character. A minor issue. Overall, I thought this was a wonderful story about fate, living life to the fullest and living it authentically. I never highlight in my kindle but there were many sentences toward the end that stopped me in my tracks and I knew I wanted to remember those thoughts. To me, that's a sign of excellent writing. I really enjoyed this story and I can't wait for Chloe Benjamin's next novel.

Review comes up on my blog, Goodreads and Amazon on January 9th.


I picked up The Immortalists thinking it would be a magical realism story which focused on the magical side, especially since it's classified as fantasy on Goodreads. But really, it's focused a lot more on the realism side, with small hints of magic here and there, and a gorgeous family epic at its core.

The Immortalists is the story of the Gold family through five decades, starting at 1969, when the four Gold children visit a woman who claims to be a psychic who can tell when a person will die. Each of the four children is more affected by the knowledge of their own dates of death differently, and throw themselves at a chance to live life in their own way before the fateful day arrives.

This story is a lovely, intricate, raw tale of Simon, Klara, Daniel and Varya, telling a bit of their stories as they deal with their doubts whether their date of death is true or just charlatanism. It touches on faith, fate, belief vs. non-belief and the power of thoughts. I found each of the stories very enthralling and I was immediately immersed in them, except for Daniel's. I also wish Klara's part had been longer (it was the most magical and she had such an interesting personality), but apart from that, I don't have much to complain about this novel - it was beautiful, raw and felt so real. It was truly something to see the characters grow as the years pass, and some memories staying frozen or seen through a different character's point of view.

I hope there had been more magic in it, but that was my own fault for not reading the blurb a lot before picking this up. If you love family epics, you'll love this story for sure.

'Maybe the prophecy did plant inside him like a germ.'

Perhaps prophecy is like an infection, if you cling to it, empower it, and give it your lifeblood. The Immortalists is a question and an answer, do you believe or not? Does it make a difference? 1969, New York City and the Gold children (Daniel, Varya, Klara and Simon) seek a mystic to find out what day they will die. Not everyone is promised a long life, and some are far too short to make anything of. Is it self-fulfilling, poisoned by the lies of a fraud, or is it fate that leads the siblings on their paths?

Each siblings embraces their death date and makes life changing decisions, sometimes against logic, sometimes not fully believing yet afraid not to, and builds a life upon it. Actions pull some closer, and divide others. The baby of the family, Simon takes off with Klara to the West Coast, where he lives with the shadow of death chasing him. He knows time isn’t a guarantee, and must give life to his true self. Klara lives and breathes magic, she and Simon are the misfits, out of step with her siblings and the expectations their mother Gertie places upon the “Gold” name. There is madness in her otherworldly ideas, but one thing is certain, she could never plant herself in an average life. Aiding and abetting her brother to shirk duty, both Daniel and Varya point blame in her direction. Daniel is against the rishika’s prediction, as far is he is concerned it’s ludicrous, he has a plan and becomes an army doctor. Order and control is the key, and he knows no one control his fate except for him. Varya seems to be the most retreating of them all, still and waiting and the one with the longest fate, if the ‘foreseer’ is to be trusted. She puts her faith in the future and research into the aging process. She is also the character that felt out of my reach. Maybe because her story is last?

Benjamin did a wonderful job creating siblings who are different from one another. Simon and Klara have the most fire, and the wildest urges. They are somehow present and absent at the same time, fleeting beings. Daniel and Varya are solid rocks, but less alive. The meat of the novel is in the idea of thoughts, the threat of them, the force and power over us as we allow them to guide or sink us. It’s often true we remember the ugly things people say more vividly than we do the kindnesses, not quite the same idea here but the heavy stuff, it can poison or on the flip side, it can push us to greatness! How differently would the lives of the Gold children have been had they never gone to see the mystic? It’s fruitless to entertain the thought as much as it is to wonder at the direction any of our choices take us and yet what an idea to play with! How much power do we put in others hands, when it comes to who we are, what we become whether we cower and give in to the demands and expectations of others or stake our faith carelessly in the whisperings of ‘prophets’ (fraudulent, or genuine)? We can be just as directionless with our free will as we can in grasping at the visions of fortune tellers! I could go on forever and beat this thing to death, but we can be as dangerous as anything we put our faith in. We can let a thought born in our own mind paralyse us, stunt our growth as much as any ‘omen’ can.

All lives are self-fulfilling, in the end, aren’t they?

Throwing caution to the wind, scattering, grasping every sparkling bit of life one can before your last breath, attempting to correct wrongs, dazzling the world with magic and flirting with the veil between past and presen, or turning to science to give life meaning, the Gold siblings have no idea what they are starting when their curiosity about a fortune-teller has them sneaking out into the night. The ending had me a bit bummed, again- it may well be my lack of bonding with Varya, but I do like it

A unique novel that manages to be magic realism and yet not. It’s a freshly provocative story about psychic belief and family bonds. I really like this author, Anatomy of Dreams was a fun book for me too and I can’t wait to see what she ‘conjures’ next.

Publication Date: January 9, 2018

Penguin Group

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

If someone offered you the chance to know the date of your death, would you take it? How would knowing this most important date change the way in which you would live your life? Would you make the most out of everyday or would you spend your life running from it?

In the Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin the Gold siblings (Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya) are faced with this very question. The story begins in New York in 1969 when Daniel overhears a story about a fortune teller, or seer, passing through town. He rushes back to his siblings and tells them all about what he heard, how she can predict the date of their death, and how he wants them all to go to see her.

The story that follows spans from 1978-2010 and is broken into four sections with each section following a different Gold sibling. We see how this single event from their past has gone to shape each of their lives both individually and as a collective as they have grown up.

The Immortalists is about family, the bonds between siblings, love, and regret. The characters are well developed and come alive on the page leaving you wanting more. Benjamin takes you back to the historic settings with her rich descriptions, especially the Castro of the 1980's.

I would like to offer a trigger warning as there a few passages of fairly explicit homosexual sex. That being said, I would highly recommend this book and am looking forward to more by Benjamin.

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC.

I received this from netgalley.com in exchange for a review.

The Gold siblings growing up in New York, 1960's. They decide to visit a fortune teller, she tells each of them the day of their death.

I had a hard time getting into this story and was rather bored. I ultimately decided, I just don't care. The book separately focuses on each individual sibling, gay Simon, magician Klara, army doctor Simon and research scientist Varya.


2☆

This book is a really excellent character study of four siblings who are told the date of their deaths by a fortune teller while they are very young. Each sibling's story is told with a depth of emotion that reaches out to the reader and draws them in to share with the love, the guilt, the fear, and the anxiety each one feels. I highly recommend this one.

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

The entire novel focuses on this question. In 1969 in New York's Lower East Side, the four Gold siblings find out that there is a psychic traveling in their area, giving out fortunes. Curious and skeptical, the Gold children seek out the psychic to learn of their own fortunes. After that day in 10969, the Gold siblings' - unambiguous Varya, imperious Daniel, magic-driven Klara, and fanciful Simon - lives change forever.

What the woman tells the children not only impact how they lived, but also affected the siblings' relationship with one another. It divides the two older siblings -Varya and Daniel - from the two younger siblings - Klara and Simon. All Klara wants is to pursue a career as an illusionist and leaves New York to San Francisco with Simon. San Francisco becomes the place where Simon finds himself and is able to be who he is and love who he wants and not be the son that must take over the family business. The two younger siblings wind up living reckless lives, counting down the days to their death date. Every day is lived to the absolute fullest, away from home with little contact with their mother and other siblings.

On the other hand, the older siblings live careful lives, both taking up stable careers - Varya a researcher on longevity and Daniel a mlitary doctor - and take care of their aging mother. Both siblings are angry at their younger siblings for being reckless and believe that if what the psychic told them hadn't affected them as much, they would live long healthy lives. Varya lives a careful life where everything is structural and straightforward, whereas Daniel lives a relatively normal life with a wife and a nice home. However, both have secrets that slowly causes them great guilt and anxiety.

The novel itself is amazing with a few plot twists. The format of it goes through the lives of each sibling from youngest to oldest, often crossing with each other in terms of dates. My only complaint was that at some points the timeline can be quite confusing and jumps around.

Overall, the novel was very well written and I'm still in awe over it and how well Benjamin was able to write each character. It makes me wonder, would I want to know my death date? If so, would I let it affect the way I lived my life?

Chloe Benjamin divides her novel into parts for each of the main characters, siblings, Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya. I could easily have read an entire story about each character. The four kids belong to Gertie and Saul Gold, a couple who live on the lower east side of Manhattan. It is the late sixties, and the Gold saga begins.

Saul is a tailor and owns the business, left to him by his father, a Jewish immigrant who fled Europe with his father after his mother died in the pogroms in 1905. Saul toils daily and takes what life offers. Saul is a good provider, a religious man who has high expectations of his children. He wants them to achieve the highest level of education possible. Nothing less is acceptable.

The four children are good kids who care about each other and stick together. Daniel and Varya have high hopes for the future. Simon and Klara are still young but not all that enthusiastic about academic achievement. After the kids visit a woman on Hester Street, the plot moves forward, and the story unfolds with just the right amount of suspense, enough to keep me glued to the book!

This a family saga that made me laugh and choke up with emotion. It is the story of many of our lives, that universal narrative that makes fiction, done well, art like no other. No two families are the same, but we all have our stories, some as dramatic as the Gold story. The book felt cathartic for me. This novel will be on my best of 2018 list.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley, the author, and G.P. Putnam's Sons. Thank you.

Four young siblings learn of a special 'seer' in their neighborhood, an old woman who can tell them their future, specifically to impart to them the day they will die. Each child hears this date alone, and must live with the consequences of knowing their future and thus the story begins. As the tale unfolds, we follow each of the four children in singularity: Simon, a young gay man, as he heads to San Francisco in the early 1980's; Klara, a free spirit who dreams of becoming a magician; Daniel, the oldest boy in their Jewish family, working towards 'normalcy;' and Varya, the eldest child, career biologist, with deeper secrets than anyone ever knew. This is a strange yet extraordinarily compelling book. Often, I did not care for the characters - their habits, their life choices, their relationships. Yet I could not put this book down. It brings up provocative themes and ideas: how would one live their life if their day of death was foretold? Do we owe it to ourselves to fulfill our life's dream? Or do we owe loyalty to our families? Is being selfish wrong or is it fulfilling our passion? The Immortalists would be an incredibly provocative choice for a book club, eliciting some fascinating and powerful conversation.

How would you live your life if you knew the exact timing of your death?

The Gold children are living in New York and are bored to death! When they hear of a mysterious woman, who can tell you things. Mysterious things. Such as when you are going to die. 

Knowing changes them all. Four siblings who shape their futures on the word of a palm reader. The youngest off to San Francisco to live life the way he wants. Along with him goes Klara who dreams of being a magician or illusionist. While Daniel studies to become a doctor and Varya becomes a scientist pushing the boundaries between science and immortality. 

This book was nothing like I expected. It is so many small stories rolled into one big story. There are the individual stories of each member of the family along with the story of them as siblings. It's about science, religion, family, dreams and the reality of life.  About what is expected of us as family while remaining true to our own dreams and hopes.

Excellent Book!

Netgalley/January 9th 2018 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

Review to come at end of dec with cross posted link

What would you do if you knew the day you would die? How would your life change or would it at all? This story tracks the life of 4 siblings from the day they found out in 1969 and into the rest of their lives.

This book gives a very interesting look into humanity and how certain knowledge can change and impact lives. I really found myself connecting to different parts of each of the four siblings and felt like each of them had very real and human reactions. This book was very interesting and gave me a lot to think about while I was reading it.

I received this book via NetGalley after I requested it, and I had requested it because of extremely high ratings on Goodreads. Unfortunately, I did not end up aligning myself with all those reviews. 

It is not extremely rare for me to like certain books that the rest of world does, mostly because I like an element of triumph in my books. This book is a story about four siblings who set out to find a fortune- teller who could tell you the day on which you would die. Once this information is received, they react to it in different ways. Either because of the information they have been provided or their inherent traits, each choose different ways to lead life and cope with what adversity throws at them. There is a thread of despair that is threaded through all the narrations told by each sibling in turn. This mood is what threw me off. How and where they end up is the crux of the tale.

A delicious, fat, intelligent, tearjerker of a family saga spanning the lives and deaths of four Jewish siblings. The writing is better than that sentence suggests. Benjamin surprises often with the originality and deft weave of her material.. Yes, there are predictable moments and implausible ones too, but overall this is a smashing indulgence of a story. Congrats.

I was pleasantly surprised with this book. It will draw you in from the start.

Imagine going to a woman who can tell you when you will die. When four young siblings go to visit this woman, their lives will change forever.

The rest of the story you will follow them on their lives path. I found their stories to be amazing as it was hard to put this one down.

The Immoritalist was very well written, although I found some of the siblings stories to start off slow, what they turned into was worth the weight.

I look forward to reading work from Chloe Benjamin in the future.

As always, thank you NetGalley for the advanced read! They are truly appreciated!

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

What would you do if as a child someone told you the day you were going to die? Would it empower you to live life to the fullest? Would that knowledge drive you to despair? Would you believe what you’ve heard or scoff at the chance you were told the truth? The four Gold children went to the old woman out of curiosity. None of them realized how that information would affect them. The fear that it would instill, the overwhelming nature of such information. In turn they each reacted differently, but none of them ever forgot the date they were told. Each of them held that date in their mind and lived. Until that day finally came.

This book was so incredibly well written. I was intrigued from the prologue and couldn’t stop reading. Simon, Klara, Daniel and Varya were all extremely well developed characters with differing passions, temperament and goals. And each of them were affected in different ways by the woman who revealed the most damning information one can ever receive. I thought Benjamin did an amazing job in creating these characters and sculpting their lives. Each journey was so believable and utterly heartbreaking.

The Immortalists was a beautiful story about family and about how we choose to live our lives. I’m not sure how I would react to knowing the date of my death or how that knowledge would affect my life. But I understood the choices the different characters made after learning their own. Benjamin, with her well written characters and beautiful storytelling, created a novel that allows you to get swept away on those imaginings while seeing how life unfolds differently for everyone. I can’t wait to see what else Benjamin has in store.

Thought provoking, multi-layered, drenched with feeling -- alive on nearly every page.