PositiveTor.comJake Wolff’s debut novel, The History of Living Forever is an ambitious and emotionally raw thing, starting and ending with grief, with a twisting alchemical plot tying these human moments together ... This framing of the elixir as a quest not only for immortality, but for normalcy and belonging, is unique amongst the host of alchemy-based SFF I’ve read and seen. It turns the question of \'the cure\' on its head—if mortality is something no human can escape from, so too are our positions as outsiders, as queers, as mentally-ill, as \'broken.\' And, the book seems to argue, that can be as painful as it is immutable as it is beautiful. If there’s one thing The History of Living Forever doesn’t offer, it’s an easy answer. It is, after all, not a catch-all elixir. The History of Living Forever is a page-turner in all its mysteries, both scientific and psychological. It’s the kind of book you think of long after you’ve finished it, whether you liked it or not—and I did like it. I suspect some will be upset by the novel’s central romance, and that’s understandable. But its project is a nuanced one, emotionally real even if it’s not morally inspiring. It’s very worth mulling over.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
