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Acclaimed author Jade Song (Chlorine) returns with her latest literary exploration: a lyrical, poignant, and heartfelt novel about the meaning of love, friendship, debt, depression, and death in New York City—a coming-of-age for a new generation, in the vein of Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh.
For as far back as she can remember, Vicky has been fascinated and obsessed with death as the only inevitable thing in life. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with death—in her home, in her work, and in her ever-growing collection of zhizha, paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, adorning the walls of her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to have meaningful connections—or find any meaning at all—in her life. Too often she spends the day in bed, only drawn out from time to time by her best (and only) friend, Jen.
That changes when a dating app leads her into a throuple with an artist and a labor organizer, who offer exactly the kind of love she needs. For some time, it's perfect, but no one understands better than Vicky that all things must end. As doubts grow over the love in her life, her friendship with Jen, and her professional success, the oddly comforting abstraction of death starts becoming something else altogether. With everything beginning to feel hollow and temporary, Vicky must decide how to keep moving forward. To try and hold on to what she has, or to once again do what she does best: destroy.
"Song writes beautifully of a young woman's aching heart as she faces the challenges of big city life. This one strikes just the right balance between melancholy and hope." —Publishers Weekly
"A primal scream-meets-love letter to a generation struggling to survive late-stage capitalism." —Kirkus Reviews
"For patient readers the ending will give catharsis, but the plot can get muddled in the serpentine musings about depression. Still, many will be eager for Song's second book and will relate to Vicky's struggle to attain happiness under capitalism." —Library Journal
"Beautiful, rich, and captivating. Jade Song invites you into an immersive season of melancholy, where hearts run free and love ambushes as readily as death itself. An experience to be savored." ―Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth
"Achingly, urgently, Jade Song probes at loneliness with some of the most poetic prose I've ever had the good luck to read. A dizzying and yearning story of love and loss, I can't remember the last time a book made me gasp like this one did. Death, sex, student debt—I Love You Don't Die is unflinching." ―Stuart Pennebaker, author of Ghost Fish
This information about I Love You Don't Die was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jade Song is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose award-winning debut novel Chlorine was selected as a New York Times Editor's Choice and translated into multiple languages. The Black List selected Song's adapted screenplay of Chlorine for its annual Writers Lab. Song pole dances and lives with too many books.
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