The Immortalists
2018 • 346 pages
Ratings60
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings60
Average rating3.7
It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children -- four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness -- sneak out to hear their fortunes. Their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco. Dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy. Eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11, hoping to control fate. Bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality. The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
Reviews with the most likes.
disbelief: suspended
pay-out: pretty good
i get why people were a little disappointed with this book. it markets itself as more of an adventure/thriller novel with the premise that all four characters know when they're going to die. however, the immortalists turns out to be more of a book about human nature, and i really liked that.
my only gripe is that varya's life and chapters seemed very disconnected from the rest of the siblings, and left me wanting more from the finale. while the other three were very interconnected in how they shaped each other's lives and deaths, there seemed to be little to no effect on varya, which made me sad. perhaps that is simply the life of an eldest sibling.
A bit disappointing. I was looking for the magical thread to run through it and tie it all together, but it wasn't there.
I'd found this while researching books coming out in early 2018 for a display I was doing, and the description sounded interesting, even though it didn't work for my display. And it was interesting-sad in the way that sticks with you after you close it. It's not my favorite book ever, and I'll probably never re-read it, but I'm glad that I did read it.
I read this on a recommendation and wasn't disappointed.
One of those addictive, page turning reads that you can't seem to put down.
And what an interesting premise!
4 siblings visit a fortune teller as children and she predicts the exact days of their death.
What follows is a vivid journey into self-fulfilling prophecy and the battles faced.
