A Break-Up Letter to The Immortalists

Dear Immortalists, 

I have a few things to get off my chest.

First, I don’t like you.  I don’t like your moodiness, your brooding, or your whiny characters.  But I also don’t like that I can’t seem to put you down.  It’s killing me (and my library card—I only get three renewals, ya’ know!).

I will grant you praise in that the hook of your book is solid:  four siblings go to a fortune teller and she predicts when they will die.  However, from the start, I did not like how you were written.  You pull the reader into your dark world where nothing seems to go right for the Gold children.  I don’t mind dark stories and dealing with death, but the four sibling’s attitudes just rubbed me the wrong way.  They seemed too narcissistic, each kid growing up into a “woe is me” adult.  Simon runs away from home instead of trying to allow his family to understand his homosexuality.  Klara continues delving into her magic tricks, her life’s passion, but finds that it really just makes her feel more trapped within herself.  Daniel feels he’s done everything by the books and then is blindsided at work with a demotion that sends him over the edge.  Varya is the only redeeming character who at least acknowledges and confronts her self-pitying behavior.

Then there’s the content.  Here’s a little advice:  if you want to hook a wider audience of readers, don’t include graphic sexual content (verging on rape) in the first 100 pages of your book.  It turns a lot of people off, and I should know.  My internet book community recently discussed the top reasons why they abandon a book, and graphic sexual content seemed to be the number one reason.  I understand what you were trying to do…Simon’s coming into his own.  He’s exploring his new sexuality he had to suppress when he was in New York.  But maybe there’s a way to do it without page after page of one night stands and booty calls and random hookups?  Or maybe I’m just a prude.  Who knows.

The one thing that kept me reading…the only thing that pushed me to finish your awful book…is the fact that I had to find out if the prophecy came true.  Did they all die on their predicted days?  And is your future shaped by this knowledge in a positive way or a negative way?  Interesting thoughts to bring up, just poor execution on your part.

So this is where we part ways, Immortalists.  I think a clean break-up is best.  So let’s just say you go your way and I’ll go mine and we never have to see each other again.  Sound good?

(Not) Sincerely Yours,

Mrs. Harper