What happens to loving each other forever when your soulmate decides living forever is more important?

Yuki and Sam are soulmates.
They are destined to spend the rest of their lives together.
They are supposed to love one another, forever.

But when a miracle drug is created which can extend a human’s life, indefinitely, Sam decides to live forever, rather than love Yuki forever.

What comes next is a time-bending, decades-long, world-building epic set across the globe and narrated by an intersecting cast of characters. Who Wants to Live Forever is the greatest romance you will ever read without the happily ever after.

I don’t know if I’ve just been in a weird mood lately or if I’m simply not picking books that match where my head’s at, but this is yet another case of me reading something that sounded like a book I’d rave about, and instead ending up somewhere in the middle.

Yuki and Sam are in their twenties and completely in love, convinced they’re going to spend the rest of their natural lives together. That all changes when a company releases Yareta, a groundbreaking drug that can extend human life by centuries. When it’s about to launch in the UK, Yuki and Sam land on opposite sides of the debate splitting the country apart. Yuki is skeptical of the drug from the start, worried about what it actually costs people ethically and economically, and she ends up joining the activist movement trying to stop its release. Sam, on the other hand, is pulled in by the promise of essentially unlimited time, and he chooses to take it, picking centuries of extended life over growing old naturally alongside Yuki. From there the story spreads out across decades and continents, following Yuki, Sam, and a few other characters whose lives intersect as the world reshapes itself around who gets to live forever and who doesn’t.

I really liked the concept here. It raises a ton of genuinely interesting questions about life, love, and what immortality would actually mean if it were real and available. It made me wonder whether I’d take such a drug if it existed. Part of me thinks I might, but then another part of me wonders if I’d get bored. I also liked the core relationship between Sam and Yuki. Both of them were characters that I understood, even though I didn’t 100% agree with either of them. Watching where their individual paths took them over the decades was interesting too, and I appreciated that the book didn’t just stay locked on the two of them. Getting glimpses into how Yareta reshaped other people’s lives added a lot to the bigger picture the book is trying to paint.

My problem was I wanted to feel more emotionally connected to all of it than I actually did. I stayed pretty detached the whole way through. I liked the characters, but I never fell for them the way I wanted to. I understood what they were going through, and I genuinely appreciated the questions the book was asking, but it just never landed with the emotional gut punch I was hoping for.

Pacing wise, the decades spanning structure worked well enough to keep me moving through the book, even though there were times when I had to reorient myself to the place and time and characters involved.

This is a smart, thoughtful book that brings up some interesting points and I’m glad I read it. I just wish it had hit me harder than it did.

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