Review: They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

I never expected to cry in the middle of Central Park (because of a book no less), but here we are.

I’d been meaning to pick up this book for years, and it had been sitting on my bookshelf for roughly the same amount of time. At the beginning of the year, I grabbed it as my next read for my free time between classes. Then classes got crazy and I was reading other novels as part of my homework, so I didn’t get to pick this book back up until May, when I finally got the chance to sit down and read it. It was so worth the wait! It was just unfortunate timing seeing as I finished it while relaxing at the park.

Summary

Shortly after midnight on September 5, Death-Cast calls everyone who is going to die within the next 24 hours, just like they have every night since their founding. Unfortunately, today these calls include 18-year-old Mateo Torrez and 17-year-old Rufus Emeterio, who start their End Day as strangers both living in New York City. Thanks to the app Last Friends, Mateo and Rufus end up together, finding their way through their End Day together, weaving their way in and out of the lives of others as they attempt to live life to the fullest on their final day.

Review

Mateo and Rufus are the two protagonists of the novel, and the story really revolves around their growth and change as individuals and with each other. I found both of their stories extremely compelling as I was reading. The novel alternates between their perspectives with the addition of other perspectives to create a unique sense of tension and suspense as the reader pieces together the connections between perspectives.

They Both Die at the End opens with Mateo’s perspective and from the very first chapter I was able to relate to him. He begins the novel as a homebody who likes to be surrounded by the familiarity of known places, people, and managed levels of uncertainty. He spends his time planning for what he will do once he steps outside of what he knows; he reads about Deckers, watching them navigate their End Days from a distance, but never taking the last step to live his life rather than saying “one day.”

In this book, Silvera takes the time to build the universe in which an organization like Death-Cast would exist, from small details, like the callers using the wrong name because they’ve been making so many calls that night, to much larger and at times more concrete structures that stem from the organization’s existence. Mateo receives his call while scrolling through a block called CountDowners, which acts as a place for Deckers to write about their last days, often leaving their stories unfinished as their day ends abruptly. Throughout the novel, we also see Mateo and Rufus go to many of the amenities created specifically for Deckers: the Travel Pavilion allowing for world travel in a day, Make-A-Miracle offering safe once-in-a-lifetime activities, and even clubs that cater specifically to Deckers and their friends who want to spend one last night together.

The book also tackles less concrete effects of this organization. Rufus lives in a foster home after losing the rest of his family in a car crash. Additionally, Mateo’s best friend, Lidia, lost her boyfriend and daughter’s father as he tried to make it back to them after receiving the call while traveling for work. How do people grieve when they know they’re going to lose someone? With Death-Cast, you can have their funeral before they pass. You can wake patients in the hospital and make them comfortable, giving them one last chance to see and say goodbye to family and friends. Sometimes, you even see a grave being dug before the person has passed. But sometimes, even with all of the calls being made each day, you don’t always know that someone is passing before it’s too late.

Storygraph has the book listed as slow-paced, which I can understand. The entire book takes place over the course of 24 hours, which can seem like a short amount of time for a novel about character growth, but I never felt like the story was dragging. For me, there was never a time that I was wishing to jump ahead a couple hours to speed the story along. Each hour and minute discussed creates a more dynamic understanding of the characters, letting them grow and change before your eyes.

Final Thoughts

I’d been hearing about this novel for a while, and I’m so glad I finally picked it up. In fact, this novel is actually one of the reasons I finally sat down and decided to start this blog. I’d been considering starting it for year, always thinking, “maybe next week, next month, next year” or “I’ll just wait until this summer, this winter break, this spring break.” This book reminded me that if there’s something you want to do, there’s no time like the present, because unlike the New York City that Mateo and Rufus live in, we don’t have Death Cast. We don’t know what is coming in the next 24 hours, so why not try to make the most of it!

I read the 2018 paperback version of They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, originally published in 2017.

If you’d like to purchase a copy for yourself, check out some of these sites:
Bookstore Link (which will connect you with your local bookstore): Link
Barnes & Noble: Link
Amazon: Link