"If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?" Would you let this date define you? Would you run from it, embrace it, protect it? The four Gold children all react to the knowledge differently and this story follows each one through the choices they make and how they choose to live their lives. Haunting and unforgettable, we see how the family falls apart and yet ultimately strengthens.

“There are two major theories about how to stop aging…”
“…It sounds like you’re saying we can choose to live. Or we can choose to survive.”

Chloe Benjamin’s The Immortalists is a thoughtfully executed novel written in simple, yet often poetic, prose that allowed the characters’ voices at their most forceful to shine on their own past the narrative itself. More than that, it is a novel crafted around a question we all ask ourselves more often than we’d care to admit: “Is it more important to truly live or to survive? To dare to dream at our grandest or to play it safe?” And, if you knew the exact day on which you’d die, would you live your life any differently than you would without that hateful knowledge?

In their youth, the Gold siblings follow a rumor to the home of a Gypsy fortune teller who gives them the knowledge they seek: the exact dates of their deaths. These prophecies propel them forward for the rest of their lives, influencing their decisions, changing the courses of their lives and plunging the question into the forefront of their minds forever: Was the fortune teller right, and, if so, can they change the course of their own fates? 

It’s an intriguing idea, we must all admit. A scary one. A downright chilling one. And the leitmotif Benjamin poses to her reader manifests itself throughout the novel with compelling force, from the exploration of God and country’s place within our existence, to what the prophecy of one’s own death does to such beliefs. Do we cling to such notions and ingrained dogmas all the way to the end, cowering under them safely like warm, childhood blankets, or using them to fortify us in our resolve and everyday decisions—or, do we slough off and away such religious and secular beliefs and become our own reason for living, our own life force, whether to our own detriment or benefit? 

The Immortalists bounds along a timeline spanning five decades, trotting through the start of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco—

“You weren’t terrified?” 
“No, not then…When doctors said we should be celibate, it didn’t feel like they were telling us to choose between sex and death. It felt like they were asking us to choose between death and life. And no one who worked that hard to live life authentically, to have sex authentically, was willing to give it up.”

¬–toward Las Vegas in the 80s and into the early years of this century, tackling tough questions, such as the logistics behind increasing the human lifespan—and the politics of attempting such a thing. For readers who enjoy novels of sweeping timelines, they’re sure to find a treat in Benjamin’s latest novel. The period settings weren’t quite as immersive as I’d hoped—the societal and technological differences in backdrop between the decades were noted but not submerging in a way that allowed me to really feel I was moving from decade to decade with true authenticity. However, what I did take from this book were lessons to carry with me, delivered by poignant phrasing that outshone the actual stories of the four siblings’ lives. And that resonated loudly enough to forgive such specifics.

I had an interesting relationship with this novel as I continued my reader’s affair with it. I could not relate specifically to any one of the characters in this book. I would not have been friends with any of them in real life, and I did feel that some of the plotlines were predictable. BUT, I learned a lesson from every single one of the siblings that I took with me until the end, and each of those moments of recognition were special.

What do you want?...and if [she] answered him honestly she would have said this: To go back to the beginning. She would tell her thirteen-year-old self not to visit the woman. To her twenty-five-year old self: Find Simon, forgive him…She’d tell herself she would die, she would die, they all would…She’d tell herself that what she really wanted was not to live forever, but to stop worrying…”

This is a novel with a strong core and a big heart, with a moral and a central theme to tie all the threads together. Chloe Benjamin’s second novel continued her thus-far-established trend of exploring existential questions in our everyday lives, creating a brand for her that is sure to glimmer and shine, attracting new readers from far and wide. 4 stars ****

Are we really the masters of our own destiny?  Or does the universe already know what’s in store for us?  These are the questions at the heart of Chloe Benjamin’s book The Immortalists.  The four Gold siblings visit a fortune teller as children, and she reveals the exact date of each of their deaths.  Simon, Klara, Daniel and Varya bear the burden of this knowledge differently, and we see how it impacts each of their lives in turn. We see how they struggle with questions of fate versus free will, and how their individual choices reverberate throughout the family.  Well written and thought provoking, these characters will stay with me for a long while. This would make a good book club choice.

New York, end of the sixties. The four Gold siblings, as a game, to show their courage, decide to visit a sensitive able to tell when a person will die.

From this point of the novel, on, we will follow singularly the lives of Simon, Klara, Daniel and Varya, in a sort of passing the baton game.

The four of them start completely different paths, and this allows the author to describe different lifestyles and historical events: the AIDS, the life as con artists, USA post 9/11, the animal used in research, OCD syndrome.

The theme that connects all the stories, and that is the backbone of the whole novel, is the opposition between destiny and free will: the Gold's lives would have been different if they did not visit the sensitive? With respect to this thematic, the most interesting story is Klara's the one who wants to be more powerful than destiny, her being always balance between reality and illusion.

The immortalist is a nice novel, in which some episodes are way better than the other ones because they are more focused on the main theme and not "distracted" by other events.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

This book brings an interesting question to the forefront: what would you do if you could know the day of your death? In the ever changing world of technology, it seems the answer to every question is at our fingertips--except the answer to the previously mentioned question.

When reading this, it was easy to reflect on what you'd do if put in a similar situation. At first you may think that you'd want to know, but then reading and "watching" the characters and how their lives are affected because they know, it puts a different thought into your mind. I love books that make me put myself into the situation of the characters, and this did just that.

The characters were well written, and I enjoyed that each of the four siblings had their own section. Over the span of each section we travel many years, so you feel like you get to know the characters on a deeper level and so, at the end, you're left with the feeling of losing a good friend. 

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I received an Advance Review Copy of this book. All Opinions are my Own.

The Immortalist is a very interesting book.  I went into it not knowing what it was about, but the author quickly set up the story and introduced the key characters.  The plot line was intriguing, and I found myself wondering what I would do if I was in the same position as the 4 siblings.  The subplot was also fascinating - I’ve always been interested in magicians and their stories.  To me, the ending was not as satisfying as I would have hoped - not all of the storylines were finished.  However, I would definitely recommend this to someone who is looking for something different to read.

I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was sad. Varya's pov was the best. It made the whole book for me. Even though I skim read quite a lot through this. 

I always have a hard time reviewing sophisticated fictional pieces as I don't think I am able to write a coherent, justifiable review for them. But i'ma  try.  

The book follows the journey of four siblings into adulthood after having found out their death dates. Their belief in that leads them to make choices that make or break their life. It showcases life in the eighties which was cool. The historical facts were interesting as well. 

The Immortalists deals with belief, familial connection or lack of, destiny, choices, and/or life on the whole. 

It showcases the power of thoughts and choices and words and how it can shape your whole life based on that. 

Also The Immortalists is pegged as Everything I Never Told You and I loved that book but I didn't connect with this novel on that level. Even though I liked it a lot. 

Special thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for this review copy.

4.5 stars

I'm speechless. This book was such a good surprise! 

The Immortalists follows four different siblings throughout four different timelines. In 1969 they all decide to see a mysterious woman that arrived in New York, a psychic who is able to reveal the day they're going to die. 

One of the questions this book posed was: "Did this major reveal shape their lives or not?". 
I loved that; how some of them tried not to be shaped by this event & how the others were sometimes obsessed by it. 
This book was basically a very long character study & it's something I love to read so I was very pleased it went in that direction.

I found myself physically unable to put this book down at times, especially when I was close to the end of one the characters' chapters. I loved how we saw reoccurring characters in different timelines & how everything seemed connected somehow. There we so many things to discuss about this book that I feel like I'm going to reread it soon & take notes!

Overall, this was a really strong novel. If you love any of the elements I mentioned you should definitely pick it up when it comes out (so soon!)

Chloe does an exceptional job of weaving the life of four siblings after they find out their death date.  It’s touching and sad, but there are light moments involving love and family, possibility and hope.  Literally couldn’t put this down.  

Leaving reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.

If someone were to tell you the date of your death, how would it change your life?  That's the question explored through the pov of four siblings in The Immortalists. Each character is very well developed in their own section of the book but the story is built as the reader gains more information from each subsequent pov. One of these worked less well than the others, in my opinion, but overall I found it to be a really interesting book to read. I suspect some readers will say it is too dark and depressing but it was through those emotions that I really connected with this family.

For fans of family stories who like a little twist and magic.  This story draws you in and doesn’t let up.  My favorite 2018 book so far!

Thanks PENGUIN GROUP Putnam and netgalley for this ARC.

Do you believe someone could really predict when you'll die? These siblings lives can't escape this prediction. It's a wild ride that you won't forget. Loved the messiness, real life emotions, and epiphanies.

I appreciate the opportunity to read and review books that are available on Netgalley! I was attracted to the gorgeous cover of this book and unfortunately did not carefully read the synopsis of the book. The content is not to my personal taste and I was unable to finish it. I do think the author is skilled and I would definitely look for another book from her.  I will not be posting my review online.

This novel has an interesting premise.  Four siblings visit a gypsy woman who is rumored to be able to give the exact date of a person’s death.  After hearing her predictions, each child deals with the news in their own way, although their knowing seems to deeply affect the choices they make in life.

As children, they were very close, but as adults, they barely have a relationship with each other.  In fact, I felt all of them led a very lonely existence.  Obviously, this is a dark, depressing story.

Once they hit adulthood, the focus is on each sibling’s life until the day of their death.  We see how their stories merge and how each death affects the remaining family members.

I can’t say I really liked the story, but I was compelled to keep reading, mostly out of curiosity.  Readers should be aware that there is some explicit sexual content and suicide mentioned in the story.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam/GP Putnam’s Sons for allowing me an advance copy to read and give my honest review.

Four siblings, four stories, four endings.  The four Gold siblings are very different from one another, and the book switches perspectives with each one's story, starting from the youngest and working up to the oldest (after a rather awkward prologue-feeling opening).  Each voice was different and felt authentic, and the stories were well developed.  The overall effect of the characters' struggles with fate and efforts to live life on their own terms felt real and personal, and there's a lot to think about and discuss in here.  

I can't quite escape the feeling that the book was so close to being something much more, though.  The big questions of life were at the periphery here when they could have been more profoundly explored.  There were so many threads that connected these characters that were just dropped, unexplored.  The four stories were so separate that the opportunity to form them into a family, to weave them into a whole, was never quite seized.  There is real substance here, but it could have been amazing, and it didn't rise to that level.  I enjoyed the book, but I kept wanting it to actually take flight, so I ended up just a bit frustrated.  Is that fair?  I'm not sure.  I think Chloe Benjamin could write something truly amazing, and I'll certainly be paying attention whenever she writes a new book.  I just think she's capable of better than this.

It's a good book.  And now I'm feeling very much the teacher, reading over my review, so I'm a bit sheepish.  But knowing that doesn't change my opinion.

I got a free copy to review from the publisher through Net Galley.

I’m so conflicted about The Immortalists. On the one hand, it was compulsively readable and at times rather hard-hitting, and on the other, I found the effort as a whole rather trite. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t particularly striking or memorable.

In the novel’s prologue, in 1969 New York, the Gold siblings – Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon – visit a Romani fortune teller, who tells each of them the date they’re going to die. The Immortalists is told in four sections, one for each of the siblings, and one by one, we see a snapshot of each of their lives, ending in each of their deaths.

It’s a chilling and intriguing premise, but Chloe Benjamin doesn’t really do a whole lot with it. My problem with this book is that it was just so… obvious? Imagine you’re told beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re going to die young. You’ll probably shape your life decisions around the short-term, and live in the present, and these are the very careless actions that will probably end your life. This is the premise of the book, and each of the Gold siblings’ fates unfolds in a similarly straightforward manner. I really wanted something more, I wanted Benjamin to dig in a bit further, to explore this theme from a less obvious vantage point. But I ultimately didn’t get much more out of this book than if I’d stuck to reading its summary.

As a whole, the four sections are rather well balanced. I think everyone is going to have a preference for which sibling’s story they prefer, but each is similarly well-researched, and I don’t think there’s a clear objective frontrunner, or one that’s notably weaker than the others, which is a good thing for a novel of this format. Unfortunately I did find that each of the sections suffered from the same issues – unclear timeline, emotionally manipulative plot points, the role of certain characters being ridiculously contrived (notably Eddie).

Though this book is relentlessly depressing, the only part I found viscerally difficult to read was Varya’s section, and the descriptions of the experiments Varya’s lab conducts on primates. Though it was a comparatively small part of the book (if each of the siblings’ sections comprises 25% of the book, the plight of Frida the monkey is only about 25% of that 25%), I found myself so upset by this one scene that I almost regretted reading this book at all. Thankfully Chloe Benjamin acknowledges her passion for the welfare of primates who have been used for lab research in her afterward, but animal lovers, approach this section with caution.

I have no doubt that many others will love this book, but I can’t help but to be somewhat underwhelmed. One last thought – maybe people with siblings will feel a stronger connection to this story than I did?

Thank you to Netgalley, Putnam, and Chloe Benjamin for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed reading The Immortalists, the story of four young siblings and a moment of fortune telling that may or may not affect their future.  The book tells each sibling's story in turn, while mixing in the original moment that seems to set their fates.

THE IMMORTALISTS was an interesting story about 4 siblings who, at a very early age, find out the date of their deaths. This information shapes their choices and leads them to live very different lives. We follow each one in turn and see how they turn out.

Simon– the dreamer who wants his proposed short life to be lived to the fullest

Klara– the magician who wants to live in the spotlight

Daniel– the practical one who becomes an army doctor who decides if someone is healthy enough to go to war

Varya– a researcher who wants to discover and share the secrets to long life

This story started off with all the siblings young and daring enough to ask a traveling psychic when their date of death will be. They each have different feelings about how accurate she actually is, but with the date in mind they all become tainted with the information.

This story is broken into sections with a focus on each sibling, going from soonest date of death to furthest. At it’s core, this is a book about siblings and how different they can be. Indeed all of these characters choose very different paths for themselves, even with the information they are given in their childhood.

To be honest, the date of death for them is not the point of this story. This could have been about any four people who live their lives to the fullest of their ability. It was hard to keep in mind that these four people were related because they all were so very different.

I enjoyed both Simon and Klara’s stories. They both want the most out of life and I think they lived exactly as they wanted. Both endings were sad and I missed them as the story progressed beyond them. I resented both Daniel and Vayra for having longer lives that felt wasted on bigger questions without much living going on.

At some point, around Daniel’s POV, the story takes a very unbelievable turn. Daniel’s story didn’t bring much to the table. He does ask some big questions about religion, but then his story fizzles out as he goes on a quest. His quest is spurred on by a detective who has no business in this story, in my opinion.

By the time I got to Varya and her eccentricities, I was pretty turned off by this story. We missed a big part of what happened to Varya when she was younger and I felt it was a cheap trick for the author to spring that on the reader after disclosing so much about Klara and Simon.

I am torn on how to rate this. I did enjoy this book for the most part, but I felt it veered off course from it’s promising beginning. Although I found this book interesting, I felt very disconnected from the characters.

I would give this book 4.5 stars. 
The Immortalists is a beautifully written family saga weaving together magic, love and loss. The book is split into four sections that focus on each of the four Gold siblings' lives after they each learn the date of their deaths from a fortune teller when they are all children. I found each section compelling and each story unique and thoughtful. The narrative slowly builds on the story of each sibling and progresses to a compelling ending that provides a deeper understanding of Varya, the oldest sibling, and completes the stories of her three siblings, Simon, Klara and Daniel. This novel is a soft blend of magic and realism, and I really enjoyed the grey area that the story lives in. The only thing keeping me from giving this book 5 stars is just that when I finished I wasn't... amazed or completely blown away by the book as a whole. However, I still really really enjoyed The Immortalists, and I can’t wait until it comes out in January!