The Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (2017)

Mateo is going to die. Of course, he has to die sometime but he’s going to specifically die today. He knows because DeathCast called him at midnight letting him know. Mateo is eighteen. Rufus is seventeen and he is also going to die today. Neither of them are ready to go out. Mateo’s anxiety has made it so that he’s barely lived and Rufus is just rebuilding his life after his family died three months ago. Through the Last Friend app, Mateo and Rufus are able to connect and attempt to live their last day to the fullest, literally. Oh, and they might fall in love along the way.

So my love for Adam Silvera is at full capacity right now. Not only is he basically the coolest person ever, he released two books this year. The first one, History Is All You Left Me was an automatic all time favorite of mine. Also, exciting news, he’s coming to my library in December (AHHHH)! Basically, my life is made. Of course, I had to read They Both Die at the End as soon as it came out and I feel like I loved it but at the same time I didn’t (if that makes sense).

The writing was obviously the first thing I really noticed and it definitely had Adam Silvera’s charm. All of Silvera’s books take place in New York, where he lives, and it really benefits him to write about where he lives. He’s able to replicate the lingo used in New York that I think people who didn’t live in that culture wouldn’t be able to create. However, I did have one problem with it and it was that he overused the term “mad”. Okay, so there was a lot of phrases like “mad energetic” or “mad grief” and eventually, the word “mad” got used so many times that it was annoying. Besides that, I think the writing flowed really well.

Even so, the plot became repetitive. This is what happened: they would go to a site they wanted to say goodbye to, one would ask the other to leave, and then after ten minutes they would regroup. This happened like five times and ended up bringing the plot down for me.  

This book is about death, but even more about living. Sometimes, there were stereotypical ideas incorporated about “living the day to the fullest” but it was almost like he was critiquing those ideas. Personally, I’ve been going through a lot of change in my life and this book definitely brought up some questions for me. That’s the thing with Silvera’s books: they make you think. Nine months later, I still think about History Is All You Left Me almost everyday, which again, brings questions to me about my life.

I had a interesting time with the characters. This book is supposed to focus on both Mateo and Rufus but in truth it was Mateo’s story with Rufus’s point of view dropping in briefly. I don’t know how I feel about either of them. Both of them were enjoyable characters but they also sounded a lot like each other. Sometimes I wouldn’t pay attention to whose chapter it was and I couldn’t tell one from the other. I had a hard time believing their love was real too, but that’s because I’m overall skeptical of the stories of falling in love in one day. There were some pretty beautiful scenes, though.

In between Mateo’s and Rufus’s chapters there were some chapters thrown in about other people that had either received their call or were somehow involved in the calls, something I liked a lot. Every character had their different views on death which I think completely added to the overall message of the story.

As always, I super appreciated Silvera’s honest themes about sexuality that were woven into the story. Again, he wrote a bisexual character (Rufus) that seemed comfortable in his sexuality while also breaking down harmful myths surrounding his sexuality. This book also tackled young parenthood and it was so nice to finally see a book praising how bad ass young mothers are.

Can Adam Silvera do wrong? I think not. It was a pleasure to have my heart broken by another one of his books and I can’t wait for the next one.

Four Stars