There has been a lot of buzz surrounding Chloe Benjamin's novel The Immortalists (#717). I found the premise intriguing - four siblings visit an old woman who is supposed to be able to predict the exact day of that person's death. How will it affect the way these two girls and two boys live the rest of their lives? The execution of that idea struck me as cynical, and the title Ms. Benjamin chose for her book deeply ironic.
The Golds are not likeable. They are without any core belief system. They surround themselves with the trappings of Judaism, but they don't believe in God. And even if they did, Jews don't believe in an afterlife; it's all about this world. All four of the Golds -Simon, Varya, Daniel and Ruby - are angry that they ever went to meet the mysterious woman, and blame her for the way their lives have unfolded, even though they've made her predictions self-fulfilling prophecies for themselves. Each loss seems magnified, and something to dwell upon, as though they alone suffer.
I kept reading, hoping that the book would get better, but it didn't. I'm sorry I wasted my time reading it. Obviously all those readers who have put this book on the NY Times Best Seller List see something in The Immortalists that I do not.
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