The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin

This novel has such a great premise. Four siblings growing up in New York in the 1970s visit a fortune-teller, who tells each of them, privately, the date on which they’re going to die. Then, in four novellas, each sibling’s story is revealed, leading inevitably to the foretold end. We see the weight of knowing your destiny, as well as the impacts of each death on the remaining family members.

And yet … I’d have to say that for me, this book added up to a little less than the sum of its parts. I’m not sure what I was looking for … more of a sense of fate? Less randomness in the outcomes for each character? More of a sense that all these destinies were interconnected? All of that sounds vague, so maybe it’s enough to say that only one of the four was really emotionally engaging to me — the rest made me wonder if the prophecy really mattered, in the end, or if it even needed to. Enjoyable enough while I was reading it, but I don’t think this one has the emotional punch that will make it linger with me.