How would you behave? This will make you think

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Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya go to visit a gypsy who tells them the day they are going to die. The book follows the story of each of them as they live their lives towards their foretold day of death. This was easily a 5 star book with engaging characters, true-feeling reactions to their own unique situations, and beautiful writing. Ms. Benjamin even seemed to change her style in each section to match her protagonist of the moment. Sometimes having the story lines jump around a bit was disconcerting, but that was easily overlooked. I did really get uncomfortable with the attention on sex during Simon's story. While I objectively understand why Ms. Benjamin wrote that way (it was the early 1980s, Simon was coming in to his own sexuality in San Francisco, the AIDS epidemic, etc), I felt most of it was unnecessary. I feel this way about detailed sex in most books. But even so, it felt true to who Simon was, just too much of it. Even before the end of the book, you wonder how each of the family members would have behaved differently if they didn't know when they were going to die. And then you wonder, how you would behave. This book did a great job of bringing that hypothetical question to life. I expect this will be one of THE books to read in 2018.