Amy 
fiction
Due to mixed reviews, I’ve been hesitant to read The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. It
was intriguing. Four young siblings
visit a gypsy to be given the dates of their death. And then their lives play
out, highlighted one at a time.
It was interesting to see the choices each sibling made
based on how long or short they expected their lives to be. I thought the story was well-crafted, telling
the entire tale in pieces that tied together to the larger whole. It gave me some things to think about, which
I always appreciate in a novel. Would I
have made different choices if I expected a short life, for example?
I don’t agree with the title of the
book. They were not living their lives
as if they would live forever. Rather,
each of them was very conscious of their predicted death dates even though they
sometimes pretended not to be. I would
have preferred The Mortalists. I also didn’t understand the tree design on the
cover unless it was meant to give the idea of the family tree, which I would
accept only begrudgingly. So, as I typed
this up I just looked up the cover design and found an article about just this
thing! Yep, family and also the cycles
of death and growth. Hmm. Okay. I’ll
allow it but, even though I like the aesthetic appeal of the tree, I don’t think
it is a meaningful cover for this novel.
Nobody cares what I think, though, and the novel has done very well so
it worked for them!
The narrator of this audiobook was Maggie Hoffman. She had a small repertoire of voices and had
some great acting moments, but I didn’t love the tone of her voice and she
mispronounced a few words. I’ll give her
a B+.
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