Book Review - They Both Die at the End

[Lucia Dinapoli]

Title: They Both Die at the End
Author: Adam Silvera
Genre: Young Adult, LGBT, Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Series: N/A
Summary:
A little after midnight, Death-Cast calls both Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to tell them some bad news: They’re going to die today.

Mateo and Rufus are complete strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.

My Thoughts:
Despite its morbid undertones, this book really did a wonderful job of describing the beauty in the mundane of every day living. It blends romance with themes of science fiction and fantasy very subtley which pays off to create a realistic world you could one day find yourself in. It helped too that the teenagers really were written like teenagers. Adam does a wonderful job of keeping them the age they are supposed to be. It was almost philisophical in aspects when making readers ask questions like, 'Would you want to know when you were going to die?' or, 'What would you do on your last day of living?' There are so many tiny details about how society would be changed if we all knew we were going to die that I really appreciated seeing in this work too. There are so many questions I have that are left unanswered.

Even though you know these two wont get a happy ending, you still find yourself experiencing that intrinsic human nature of wanting them to succeed. I also really love how the seemingly unimportant characters were actually connected to the larger part of the story. It really made me think about how people who come in to your life, even for just a split second, can change you for better or worse.

Humanity is beatiful. Living is beautiful. Love is beatiful. And death, although heartwrenching, is simultaniously apart of all of those things. Questions and fears about death felt really raw in this. I enjoyed it very very much depsite all of my crying.

[Aurelia West]

Though I've had this book on my shelves for a while, I hurried to read it once I read Lucia's review and I was not disappointed. This was perhaps the book I managed to read the quickest this year. The writing style is refreshing and the teenagers feel like real teenagers. The plot, which takes place over a single day (which may have aided in me finishing it quickly), feels realistic as well and like Lucia mentioned, I thought it was interesting how minor characters had their day as well. It makes the reader aware that the main characters aren't the only characters, and that the world is bigger than them. I thought it added to the world building a lot and in a sense took the reader out of the direct storyline, but it never felt intrusive or like something that just needed to be slogged through. Even the creator of the Last Friend app making an appearance was a nice surprise.

Both Rufus and Mateo read like individual characters and it's really beautiful to see their personalities opening up to each other as the day goes on. If there is one thing that felt simultaneously underwhelming yet entirely plausible for me, it was Mateo's death. The book does a great job of making you feel like someone is going to get shot at some point by Peck, so it felt like both a good and bad thing to me that that isn't what happened. While we knew the stove was an issue since the beginning, it still felt odd to me for that to be his end, though I think overall that contradictory feeling is what Adam intended to convey. I would say the book's strongest point is it's ability to live a life in one day. It certainly made me want to put a bit more life into my everyday.






edit - Septem-bean beans sent! - Tarma