I was honestly pretty underwhelmed with The Immortalists. It's hard for me to describe, but I mostly just wanted more coaxed out of myself when reading it - more emotions, more profound thoughts, more connection. Instead, I finished with a feeling of meh. I felt almost no connection to the characters, other than Simon. Since the novel was written in four parts, each part being a different siblings story, I thought I would get to know each intimately, but the time jumps made it to where you missed giant chunks of the siblings' lives. With Simon, you only miss a few years. But by the time you meet Varya again, she is already in her 50s. This made it so difficult to feel anything for the characters.
I started out really enjoying the story, but my interest slowly declined the further into the story I got. I didn't hate reading it, I still finished it happily. I even have a few quotes that I loved and will save in my quote collection. But it is definitely a low 3-stars for me. The message of the story didn't feel very groundbreaking for me either, and I feel like the story was unfortunately forgettable.
One thing I think was most odd, and it might be odd only to me as I'm making my foray into Adult novels (at the age of 30!) vs. my usual YA... Benjamin made the most casual references to sex and bodies that felt so out of place. In the second sentence alone, she describes 13-year old Varya by her height, her hair color, and... "the dark patch of fur between her legs" and her breast size/shape. This happens a bit throughout the book and was always a bit jarring to me.
There are also definitely quite a few trigger warnings in this novel, including: sex scenes, acts of suicide, gun violence, discrimination (of sexual orientation, race, and religion), eating disorders, mental illnesses (including OCD and depression), AIDS, death, lab animal testing, and mention of past abortions. **TW don't affect my review, but I always like to mention them in case my review influences others to read the book.
I started out really enjoying the story, but my interest slowly declined the further into the story I got. I didn't hate reading it, I still finished it happily. I even have a few quotes that I loved and will save in my quote collection. But it is definitely a low 3-stars for me. The message of the story didn't feel very groundbreaking for me either, and I feel like the story was unfortunately forgettable.
One thing I think was most odd, and it might be odd only to me as I'm making my foray into Adult novels (at the age of 30!) vs. my usual YA... Benjamin made the most casual references to sex and bodies that felt so out of place. In the second sentence alone, she describes 13-year old Varya by her height, her hair color, and... "the dark patch of fur between her legs" and her breast size/shape. This happens a bit throughout the book and was always a bit jarring to me.
There are also definitely quite a few trigger warnings in this novel, including: sex scenes, acts of suicide, gun violence, discrimination (of sexual orientation, race, and religion), eating disorders, mental illnesses (including OCD and depression), AIDS, death, lab animal testing, and mention of past abortions. **TW don't affect my review, but I always like to mention them in case my review influences others to read the book.