This was another book that I unfortunately did not finish. I made it about 40% of the way through and just found myself not interested anymore. The beginning of the book was difficult for me to get into. There wasn't much that hooked me besides being able to relate to the struggle with depression and suicide. I think this is another one that I would maybe try to pick up and read again when I am in a different head space. The writing itself was well done and I think what I did read described the experience with depression and suicidal ideation perfectly. Thank you for allowing me to read some of this ARC before it came out. I appreciate it.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow Books for this arc in exchange for my honest review!

This story follows Vicky, a woman in her twenties living alone in NYC and working as a writer. While she is living in her dream city working as a creative, she finds herself severely depressed and cannot stop obsessing over the concept of death. To make things worse, she works for a company that sells urns, profiting off of death. Vicky has a hard time maintaining romantic relationships, and prefers to date for fun/sex before moving on. The only consistent figure in her life is her best friend Jen, who also lives in NYC. Then Vicky becomes romantically intwined with a couple that she may care more for than she wants to admit.

This book centers death, friendship, love, and trying to survive in one of the most cut-throat and expensive cities in the world. I think any woman navigating her twenties would relate to Vicky or Jen in some capacity. Song’s writing style is beautiful and I think she really encapsulated the uncertainty/anxieties that go along with being a young person trying to get by so well. I think it’s easy for writers to make young people sound a bit cringey or unrealistic in their dialogue, but this was not the case at all for this story. The dialogue felt natural and the friendship between Vicky and Jen felt very real and relatable.

Please check trigger warnings before you go into this book, it can get pretty dark. I definitely cried at the end.

I think if you like Halle Butler or Emily Austin, you would probably like this one too! Definitely recommend!

I haven’t read any of Song’s work, so her reputation preceded her for me. This book was real, and written from a place that felt like it could have been someone in my life. Many thanks to those that remind me that they love me, don’t die.

This is a hell of a dark, interesting follow up to Chlorine from Jade Song. We get a young woman in NYC working for a startup trying to "disrupt" the funeral industry, and the mildly insane founder she works under, and how she becomes involved in a throuple with an artistic couple. The trajectory of her job and her love life end up becoming entwined, and though you might be able to see where it's going to end up early on, you hope it doesn't wind up that way. The tragedy of it all ends up being almost cathartic, and there is fire involved, but it's fascinating to watch this all play out. Pick this up when it comes out next spring!

Thank you NetGallery for the eARC! 4.5 ⭐️

Spoilers ahead:

“Live with me so we can live happier, together. Live with me so our lives can intertwine like tree roots, so we can burst free from this grounding despair and blossom upward toward the sun.”

There is something about the way Song writes her characters and their mental illness. It is a tough read, strongly because of the mix of relatability and empathy I found myself experiencing. Vicky is a deeply sad person who is drawn to another deeply sad person. A very magnetic and real experience I’ve had with some other people.

As a tragic story, I also found myself inspired by various things the characters said/experienced. The range of depressive episodes and struggles with self-worth were raw. Yet there were also times the characters (especially Vicky) found themselves seeing the possibilities of more. Love is a central theme of this story. Vicky’s dream is to live happily with Kevin, Angela, and Jen in their morphed love. And as Jen tells Vicky at the end, love is what gives life purpose. Love for each other, love of art, love of existence. Angela was not able to change in the ways Vicky was, yet there is an understanding to both of these characters ends. Although they will not intertwine with one another, Vicky has the chance to grow and develop new roots.

I didn’t love this one as much as Chlorine, but I appreciated the change in direction. I would absolutely recommend, just be ready to have your heart a little broken.

We follow Vicky, who is a young woman just basically struggling through life. She has an existential crisis constantly and has struggles with mental health. She is working a job she's constantly terrified of underperforming at because she knows her boss has high expectations and will fire her if she doesn't meet his standards. She has a weird obsession with death and a fear of the people she loves dying. She meets a couple that she starts dating, a cynical and severely depressed woman named Angela and an artist who doesn't understand mental health struggles in the way they do named Kevin.

I relate to Vicky's character so much, which is why it surprises me to admit this book fell a little flat for me. I loved the deep understanding of mental health struggles and how accurate it is to the way I think sometimes and my personal anxieties. It just didn't give me enough. It was missing a lot of character growth to get me really attached to anyone. I feel like with more development of the characters and more stuff happening than just short-term dating and one bad event, I could have been a lot more invested in them.

I definitely am one of the people that can strongly relate to the characters thoughts and struggles so I feel like I was the target audience for this book but I could sum up everything that happened in this book to someone in a paragraph and they really wouldn't be missing any important details. The ending was also bizarre and not how any person would react, mental health issues, or not.

Ultimately, this book needed to be longer to portray the message it was going for.

Thank you Jade Song, William Morrow, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

A very cool-girl take on a coming of story in NYC, we follow Vicky, a depressive twenty-something who finds fascination in death. Her hobbies include cemeteries, death rituals, and stressing about her job at a hip funeral-centered start-up. While Vicky would be totally fine bed-rotting her life away, her best friend Jen encourages her to put herself out there and start dating a couple. Watching Vicky navigate life and relationships was interesting, but there were moments that I found myself quite frustrated with her, which I think speaks to the skill of Song's writing complex characters. The POV changes had some of the strongest changes in voice that I've seen, and I never found myself blurring together perspectives which was quite impressive.

With that said, I don't think this read was for me. The subject matter was quite heavy, but focus would randomly be spent on areas that I didn't feel should take importance, leaving deep relationships and intense conversations to feel haphazard and lacking. Maybe I wasn't in the right space when I read this, but while the story progressed, I knew I wasn't feeling what I was supposed to be feeling for these characters.

A big thank you to William Morrow and Netgalley for giving me early access to this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Be sure to check look out I Love You Don't Die on March 17th, 2026!

This was my first ARC I was approved for by #netgalley and @williammorrowbooks, and it was a good choice for my first book.

The cover caught my eye right away, and the books description is what made me want to read this one. For me, the idea of the book was new and different, and as someone who thinks about death often, it seemed to be right up my alley. It's fast-paced and thought-provoking. Im not big on annotating, but I did highlight several pieces of this book. I also appreciate the representation throughout of mental health and the inclusiveness of all peoples.

However, I didn't really like the writing style and some chapters I thought could have been left out. There wasn't much balance between speaking on serious topics and humor, something just felt off. I also lost interest at certain points and had to reread the pages 🫣

My favorite line: “If I had known of death, I would not have chosen busy. If I had known of death, I would have respected time.”

I Love You Don’t Die is a searing perspective into debilitating depression and one young woman’s relentless pursuit to keep her head above water, even if she doesn’t know what for. She wants to die so she can stop fearing the deaths of those she loves. She wants to say goodbye first so no one else can beat her to it. It is the temptation that plagues her nearly every second of every day. Jade Song portrays mental illness and those it impacts so well. I found the writing to be repetitive at times, and felt we could have used more plot, but I also think Song disappeared time perfectly as so often happens when we’re lost to our own episodes. This is a hard, complicated read worth your time.

This book is a mixed bag. Elements of the story were interesting but I found myself waiting for more. I wanted to explore her and Jen’s relationship deeper. I wanted to see more of her relationship with Angela and Kevin. It felt like in baking where instead of using they put and “extract” of it. Enough to hint at its taste but not enough where you can really taste it. This book gave the reader the extract of the character without ever feeling like they were really there. I think perhaps telling the story in first person instead of third person would have been better. Much of the story I felt very detached from the characters. Which is a shame because all of them were interesting and compelling in different ways and for different reasons. Its too bad we weren't able to explore them in more depth.

For all my Sylvia Plath and Ottessa Moshfegh girlies: this one’s for you.

This speculative fiction novel is steeped in death, grief, suicidal ideation, and the raw, complicated beauty of friendship. It follows Vicky, an Asian American woman whose life revolves around death literally and emotionally. She works at a company that specializes in helping people pre-plan their funerals. She struggles to form close connections, haunted by intrusive thoughts and vivid dreams of losing those she loves. Her mind is a battleground of suicidal ideation and deep, aching loneliness.

This is Vicky's story as she attempts to navigate young adulthood while living with major depressive disorder. Though there is a romantic subplot, the emotional core of the book is her relationship with her best friend, Jen. Their bond is messy, real, and heartbreakingly intimate. It's rare and refreshing to read a story where the protagonist isn’t "saved" by romantic love, but by a soulmate of a different kind: a best friend who sees her, understands her, and holds space for her pain when she can’t hold it herself.

The book is dark, lyrical, and unflinching. It doesn’t tidy up grief or glamorize mental illness, it sits in the discomfort and longing. The prose is beautiful, melancholic, and precise.

If you liked Chlorine, you’ll find familiar threads here: an Asian protagonist, themes of mental illness, and the search for identity. But this novel carves a different, more intimate path. It’s haunting, human, and unforgettable.

Many Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing an advanced
copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I was a big fan of Chlorine, and was very exited to get to preview her next release: I Love You Don't Die. In this novel, Song steps away from the more horror aspects of Chlorine as she touches on so many topics: Late Stage Capitalism, Labor Rights, Climate Change, Sexuality, Privilege, 3rd generation immigrant identity, Polyamory and non-monogamy. But most of all its about depression. Depression and the way it affects how we handle the tough things in life. The way this book is almost trying to do it all without taking away from the main story is insane.

Our main character, Vicky, struggles with depression as she works for a trendy tech-bro funerary company. Her avoidant attachment style basically runs her life and dictates how she handles all of her relationships, even in her choices to seek out couples rather than one-on-one
connection. As someone who has struggled with depression, I really resonated with each of the characters. We get insights into our side characters as well, who are each handling their own grief and mental issues in different ways. I wouldn't say any of the characters are exactly likeable, but this book sure was. Highly recommend, but be sure to take a peek at the TW list if you are sensitive to things

This has been compared to Rooney and Moshfegh, to me this felt like a slightly darker Emily Austin with a deeply interior and depressed protagonist.

There’s a real heaviness to this especially when it comes to suicide and suicidal ideation so be wary if this is a triggering topic for you. Additionally, these characters are complex and very unlikeable which may be offputting to some.

It’s rare to see ace and poly representation in litfic and even bi rep is pretty limited so I enjoyed seeing this here. While there is romance here, friendship is at the front and center, explored at its best and worst.

I also liked the exploration of Vicky’s identity as a 3rd generation immigrant who is both othered by white America and disconnected from her Chinese heritage.

There was something almost dystopian about this book despite it being set in the present day. It feels satirical in how it digs into the despair of late stage capitalism and trying to survive as a creative. It offers a sharp critique on identity as a commodity or a market waiting to be unlocked.

I did enjoy this, and I’m glad I picked it up despite not really vibing with Chlorine.

4.5 🫶🏼🫶🏼Whew. This book took me by surprise. I read Chlorine and wasn’t a fan, but I really wanted to give this author another go and I’m so happy I did!

In this book we are following Vicky who works a remote position at home, which is perfect for her because she really doesn’t want to live… or she likes the idea of not living…but she has this best friend Jen who is her lighthouse(codependent at times for sure) who checks in on her and loves her.

Vicky decides she wants to get back into dating..mainly because Jen pushes her to so she meets up with this other couple and they start dating..to an extent.

I loved Vicky so much. Her life has shaped how she views love and the limits she has set around it. While her and Jen don’t have this perfect friendship, I found it refreshing.

The ending of this book had me 🥹🥹

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and to the Publisher, William Morrow, for the ARC!

I had read the author's debut novel, Chlorine, and knew I had to get my hands on an early copy of this one.

I Love You Don’t Die by Jade Song is a raw and tender exploration of friendship, love, work, and the messy pursuit of purpose. Reading it felt like revisiting the candid, unfiltered vibe of HBO’s Girls.

Song’s writing captures the small, often overlooked moments that define relationships - the quiet acts of love, the unspoken tensions, the way life drifts and reconnects. It’s a story about showing up for others and letting them show up for you, even when it’s hard.

If you’ve ever felt lost in the whirlwind of adulthood, this book will resonate.

Jade Song is officially an author that I will always read from. Chlorine was my top book of 2023, and I have been eagerly anticipating the author’s next release. Imagine my total joy when I saw this announced, then on NetGalley, and then granted to me as an ARC wish! I devoured this. The thing about a Jade Song book is that you are truly in the characters’ heads, swept up in their emotions, and completely enveloped by their flaws. In both books I’ve read from this author, the characters are human and real, and portrayed in shades of grey. That plus lines that make me think about society and how it’s structured and things we take as normal that are actually incredibly harmful make her writing something special. This book was different from Chlorine, so don’t expect horror. This book centered around the absolute overwhelm of living with grief and depression. Painful. Powerful. Purposeful.

Some “If you liked” style comparisons: The intense friendship, codependency, and at times pretentious art talk made me think of Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang.

3.75 ! if you have never allowed yourself to think of death long enough for you to anything more than aversion to the taboo, then this book will definitely allow you the opportunity. vicky is both relatable and reprimandable, a person who becomes so enveloped by the concept of death that she cannot do anything but sink into herself as she faces its inevitability.

the story is raw in that there is no sudden solution to help vicky—or any of the others—be immediately relieved of what plagues them. and following them through the realistic depictions of their depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts is what had made me sink even deeper into the story, especially how their individual problems manifested outside of themselves into affecting each other. everything is so deeply human that nothing ever feels unfounded or out of line.

though the prose at times was clunky, the flow of poetic lines broken by exposition or an in-character interjection (which im not the biggest fan of), it doesn’t deter me from wanting to recommend this book !

An extremely powerful story about a young woman struggling to maintain meaningful connections in her life due to the constant shadow of death. Jade Song has created a beautiful and visceral ode to life, friendship, and battling with mental health in the modern age. Lyrically written, the second half of this book is a devastating whirlwind that is impossible to put down. I firmly believe that this book will be The Bell Jar of the decade.

The book was just meh for me.

I thought the concept was interesting if a little unbelievable at times (designer urns! His name's Urnie, get it??), but I do like that the central love story was really a platonic friendship.

4.5

This story follows Vicky, a young depressed woman living in New York. She has quite the obsession with death. She works for a famous urn company, lives above a funeral parlor, and collects zhizha. This is an amazing deep dive into depression, grief, death, life, love, and so much more. An insanely human story. We meet a few people close to Vicky and see how all the things mentioned before play a role in their lives and how differently people handle the “heavy” things. What it’s like living with, loving, and interacting with someone who struggles with depression or suicidal ideation etc. This was an extremely real, painful, and beautiful read.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the eARC!