What I went into this expecting was not at all what I got. The life stories of the people we learn about, told through their obituaries, was the one aspect that I liked about this book. But, there was just all info, no feeling and it took me completely out of the story.

The AI aspect wasn’t explored in the way in which this book was pitched. I was prepared for more feeling. Points for originality, though!

My thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an advance copy of this work of fiction that is written a unique style, one that tells a story through the lives-lived by its characters, crossing time, space, well the space to Mars, an an alternate history of possibilities.

One of the things that comes up in discussions with booksellers is that there is a lot of sameness in fiction right now. There have always been the zombie writers, writers long dead who still seem to be publishing books, or books written by manqué writers, with a dead author's name larger than the title on front. Covers of women walking away from the view, with titles of Orphan, or Librarian in the title, with a popular city attached. Thrillers too have become stale, who wants Jack Ryan stopping something threatening the government, when we are one vote away from a tyranny? So I was beyond thrilled when I started this book, and was totally at sea for the first few pages. I haven't been so surprised by an author since I discovered Mark Dunn or Mark Layner, an author unafraid of trying something new, something different, and something that has meaning, even when it doesn't seem so. A book that loves language, and makes us appreciate life, while reading of the lives of the fictional characters in this book. Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins, is a novel about the future, the past, what could be, and the importance of every life, from the most powerful, to the unknown, and the effect each one has on the future.

The book is told in obituary entries, each one linked by a characters mention, or an event. There are also bits of death lore, word definitions and a few newspaper articles. All are interlinked and add to the story. The book starts in the future, at the start of the next century with a young woman committing suicide at the seawalls that save New York City from being flooded. This unknown woman, turns out to be the daughter of the first Artifical Intelligence to be married, and to give birth. From there we move in time, to meet artists who started movements and gave ideas to others, in both good and bad ways. Florists who share there love of flowers that gives advice to young women. Elderly people living on Mars. Vast conspiracies, and the loss of love between people, or of love that got away. Most importantly the love of a mother, who worked so hard to be human, but has had everything taken from them.

This is a book that loves language, and uses words in ways I have not seen in quite a while. People might have a problem with the narration as it does flow through time and place, from New York to ancient Rome, to the west, to Mars, to an alternate world where a famous person avoids the fate that is expected of them. Robins has written each obituary in a different style, from the flowery past, to the AI derived future, but giving each character, from trillionaries, to reporters a full life. For a book with an AI character, this is the most positive work I have read in a long time. Each character, has a reason to live. From creating art that changes people, to dying on a distant soil, Robins reminds us that we are not alone. All of us are building on the acts of others, and without them in big and little ways, life would not be the same. I love the idea of what Robins did, but I love the ideas that Robins has. Using flowers to tell the future, the idea of sending the elderly to Mars. Snake dancers who are strippers. Magicians saving lost writers. Each entry is like an onion with so many layers, each advancing the story. This took me a while to read, which I enjoyed as I never wanted it to end. If one like fiction that makes one work, makes one think, and is far different than what is out there, I can't recommend it enough.

The book comes with a Book Club guide, and an interview with the author, that I highly recommend. This is a book that needs discussion, and needs support to be put in people's hands. I can't wait to get a finished copy of this, and keep it ready to share. I look forward to more by Eden Robins, and can't wait to see where their next book takes me.

What the **** did I just read? The blurb for Remember You Will Die makes it sound like speculative fiction - a genre I dip into occasionally and usually enjoy for the originality of its plots. Don’t be fooled, this is certainly original, but in a bonkers and deeply unsatisfying way. I usually like epistolary novels, and the idea of a story told all in obituaries sounded intriguing, but there needed to be a story, and if there was one, I’m not clever enough to find it - the worst kind of pretentious literary fiction. I contemplated bailing at 50% but wanted to find out what would happen. Sadly nothing did.
I’m giving it 2 stars rather than the 1 it probably deserves, because the writing itself is appealing, and I liked the paragraphs on the etymology of various key words, and respect what the author was trying to do, but this left me confused and resentful of the time wasted.

I received an ARC from NetGalley & Sourcebooks. Remember You Will Die is published on October 22nd.

Inventive and fascinating look at grief, with a unique structure and lovely writing. Absolutely stunning.

dnf at 30%

I feel really bad for DNFing an ARC but I really had no motivation to keep going with the book.

The book has an extremely interesting premise where the story is told through news paper clippings and obituaries, which gave me the sense that it was a mystery that the reader would be piecing together just like a detective doing a research. However, after the first few entries, the gimmick wore off. To imitate news articles and obituaries, the tone is purposefully dull and detached, but there just wasn't enough there to keep me going through it all. I feel like there just needed to be more intrigue and clues dropped.

Maybe I just don't have the attention span for this, but I after skimming the reviews, it looks like many people felt the same, and some who did finish the book did not feel sufficiently rewarded for their perseverance. I would still give this author another go in the future, but this book was a miss for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-book ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This had such an interesting sounding premise and reading the blurb had me hooked. Unfortunately I don't feel like this delivered and was very different to what I was expecting it to be.

I understand it is basically about AI trying to learn grief but the constant obituaries just ended up making it really boring and I really struggled connecting to the story. I found the formatting off, it just was not working for me and I would of liked abit more character work to make it feel more personal so I could of connected and cared more.

Remember You Will Die by Angel Gabriel is a bold, genre-defying exploration of human history, told entirely through the obituaries of sixty deceased characters. The novel’s unique narrative structure is both its greatest strength and a potential stumbling block for readers. The central thread involves Peregrine, an AI mother grappling with the death of her human daughter, Poppy, as she navigates a world of interconnected lives and histories that span continents, centuries, and even planets.

The novel’s innovative format—told through obituaries, news articles, and other epistolary elements—creates a fragmented yet intriguing puzzle for readers to piece together. However, this approach also leads to challenges in maintaining a cohesive storyline. The connections between the obituaries and Peregrine’s grief over Poppy are often tenuous, leaving some readers yearning for a deeper exploration of their relationship. Gabriel’s writing is rich with themes of art, celebrity culture, and the intricate tapestry of human existence.

Yet, the emotional core of the story, Peregrine’s grief, is often overshadowed by the broader narrative. While the concept is undeniably fascinating, the execution may leave some readers feeling disconnected. In conclusion, Remember You Will Die is an ambitious and thought-provoking novel that will appeal to those who appreciate experimental storytelling, but itmay not resonate with everyone due to its complex structure and diffuse focus.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks for this book. I can assure you that this book will find its audience—I am just not the target. I could not tell you why I anything happened nor why I should have cared for the characters. The book and how it’s told is different and I do believe it will resonate with a core group of people.

I wanted to be able to get into this book and enjoy it. Maybe because I was going through the process of losing my mother while reading this, I thought I would get something out of it. Maybe that’s why I completely missed whatever this book had to offer. But honestly I just felt nothing. At the end of the day it was a task for me to finish checking off. Much like dying at some point.

like many others have said, great concept but poor format for it in my opinion. id read other works by the author cause it was well written.

I don't like to leave a low review, but sadly, I really could not take to this. I feel it was a good blurb, that hooked me in and had a certain expectation, which completely wasn't what I was expecting. Sorry. I had a struggle to finish it.
It was very different, and can be interesting in parts.

Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The synopsis of the book sounded interesting, however the execution of the book was not. The format was not able to pull through for me, and I had a lot of trouble relating to the story and the characters. This was unfortunately a DNF for me, and I would not be able to recommend this book to anyone. I would not be posting this review on social media and would not be checking out other works by the same author.

I found the concept really interesting about what can be learnt solely from the obituaries of people but it instead felt very cold and distant from these people. Maybe that was the point but it made the book hard to read as I could not connect to anyone even though you're reading obituaries. The cover and concept were great but the execution didn't work for me.

I was expecting something else when I read the synopsis, something more “personal” that would make me connect with what I was reading. I understand that the structure is experimental, but it was really just obituaries, one after another after another. At first it was interesting to notice the connections between the people in the obituaries, but then it felt like too much, looking up names in the obituaries and having bits and pieces of a story that felt scattered and I couldn’t make it matter enough to me to not get bored.

This book didn’t work for me, although I recognize that the element of an AI trying to understand what grief is through the obituaries is a fascinating idea, here what I think didn’t work for me was the execution.

i only read the first 25% of this book. i could not get into the unique format and i was left scratching my head saying “huh?” multiple times.
this could have been a different experience for me if i had a paper version of the book in-hand. much easier to go back and skim vs. trying to move backward and forward on an e-reader.
maybe i’ll try again someday but this wasn’t a book i could read right now.

thank you to sourcebooks landmark for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. all opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the opportunity to read this ARC and leave an honest review!

Unfortunately, I only made it through about 30% of the book before I made the decision to DNF. I really wanted to enjoy this book because the premise and the writing style was so interesting and fresh - an AI mother talking about grief and loss through obituaries and letters? I loved the epistolatory style (it is so rare to find books that use this format) and I thought the concept of telling the story using only that style was very innovative. I just found that I did not really connect very well with the characters and at times, the letters and obits jumped around a lot in terms of past, present, and future, leaving me uncertain of the storyline and plot.

I would recommend to anyone looking for a fresh take on the sci-fi genre and the use of a different writing style!

I'm so bummed about this because I had such high expectations going in. Maybe that was my fault. Since reading Annie Bot by Sierra Greer, I've been searching for that same high I got reading about AI robots becoming sentient, or at least learning what human emotions actually feel like and I went into this thinking it was going to give me that 5 Star feeling.

It, unfortunately, did not.

So, to begin, Remember You Will Die is about an AI woman named Peregrine dealing with the death of her human daughter, Poppy, and the grief that comes with that - especially due to the mysterious circumstances in which her daughter died.

The way this story was told just didn't do it for me. I understand the idea behind it -- AI grief told through centuries of obituaries, however, it lacked an emotional weight to the story. If you're going to write a novel exploring human emotions as an AI, especially one as strong as grief, it would be better to start off with obituaries and then move to a more narrative storytelling, one that shines light on the divergence of stiff, machine understanding to all-consuming sentient emotion.

There were also too many character storylines that never seemed to make any emotional impact, thus derailing the true story plot line which, sorry to say, left me bored.

This wasn't a bad book by any means, though, and I'd be interested to see what Robins writes in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

To start off, I really enjoyed the concept of this book. The idea of a novel that is solely built of obituaries, with a story that feeds through them as the book progresses. There's a lot of different characters in this book that connect up through the thread of the story, an AI personality that was created out of the threads of the people in the novel. The format of this novel is really beautiful, and there's a lot to be said for the way that this has been written. I think that if this was done slightly differently, it would have been an absolutely spectacular read.

I didn't really connect with the main thread of the story in here, and thought it could have been done differently. I found myself really fascinated by the connections and threads of people in the substantive of this book, but less so the plot that came through the middle. This is a really wonderful concept - I just wish that it was done slightly differently.

3.5 stars

This was the most unique science fiction I've ever read simply for its writing style. An AI named Peregrine gave birth to a human daughter Poppy and searches through the internet to find out what happened leading to Poppy's death. It seemed interesting however, it is written through a series of news articles, letter and obituaries. It feels like I'm doing the internet digging myself and I miss a connection to Peregrine at all except through passing articles.

I did like a lot of the alternate histories as well how AI played a part in the future. It was definitely interesting. I just couldn't get into it as much as I wanted to because of how disjointed it felt with a new article every few pages. All the characters were connected in some way so reading about it does build out the world and connect things. But I felt emotionally disconnected from any sort of main character and journey.

I also thought this was satire for a while because of the amount of backhanded insults in the eulogies. I'm not sure that's how eulogies work. I don't think it's supposed to be satire. Maybe Peregrine was editing her thoughts into articles as she went through them. I am not sure.

It was a unique read that I definitely don't fully understand, but there's going to be a select group that will eat this up.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really tried to enjoy this book. The format just didnt work for me. It was definitely genre bending. I think many people will love this book, though!