“No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end.”
-Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End
Both Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio receive a call from Death-Cast that tells them they’re going to die today. They both download the Last Friend app, desperate for a friend on their last day. Together, they’re able to conquer their fears and pack a bunch of new adventures into their last day on Earth.
Death was a theme in the books I read this summer, apparently. Adam Silvera is currently the king of writing emotionally devastating books, because every single book he’s written makes you feel. He has a way of writing this book that gives you hope that maybe Mateo and Rufus will find a way to defy the Death-Cast call even though you know that that’s probably not the case. This is an Adam Silvera book, after all. You often end the book with a lot of different emotions.
The characters in this book are so relatable and well-developed, with characteristics that I think many teens will be drawn to. What’s interesting about this book, and connected it to More Happy Than Not, was that we get no explanation as to how we get this technology that predicts death, it’s just there. And while that might be frustrating and confusing to some people, I think Silvera’s writing allows us to just accept that there’s this new technology, and new vocabulary, which allows us to focus on the characters and the story.
Adam Silvera’s books are so emotionally driven, and I’ll definitely keep reading everything that he puts out. None of his books have disappointed me so far, and I hope that continues to be the case in the future. A beautifully written story about living life to the fullest.
5/5 stars