this book is an example of what is wrong with publishing: the trend to write books by committee. there's some sort of checklist of identities, ethnicities, and social justice issues where the author keeps adding superfluous details until they've accrued enough checkmarks. at it's heart, this is a story of 4 siblings who are told the date of their deaths and how they react to this news. as one life comes to an end, the story moves - baton like - to the next sibling. and once you add all those required identities/ethnicities/issues, it makes for a wide but shallow story. many details of their past are brought up when it is convenient to explain a sibling's present behavior. And I think a better constructed novel would place those incidents in the correct chronology. The mother, watching death after death of her adult children, doesn't even merit a chapter? mind-boggling!

the characters all have the same voice (and entirely too modern for the time period) and because we don't spend any deep time with them, the reader doesn't connect with them. for a book explicitly about their deaths, it doesn't pack the emotional punch I'm sure the author wanted. lastly, I'm incredibly frustrated that (spoiler) Klara commits suicide and NONE of the family members really reflect on that or the fact that she left behind a one-year-old baby. Or how about Daniel (spoiler) becoming a murderer? Varya and her mother never address it except in the lightest, dismissive, sense.