Welcome back to another reading challenge update! This month’s read was ‘They Both Die At The End” by Adam Silvera. I’d heard a lot of great things about this book, it has been all over my Instagram feed lately and I’d seen it pop up a few times on the various book groups I’m in on Facebook. Since it’s been getting a lot of recent attention, I was surprised to see it wasn’t a new book but was actually published back in 2017. As always, I had a little research sesh over on Goodreads to check out some of the reviews. There were a lot of comments from people about to start the book asking whether or not they actually do die at the end, and as much as I want to say that there’s some twist of fate in there and they don’t, I can confirm that yes, they do both die at the end…
They Both Die At The End – Adam Silvera
Genre: Young Adult/Fiction/Contemporary/LGBTQ+
Blurb:
On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.
Mateo and Rufus are total 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 the 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.
This is the kind of book that will tear your heart out, rip it into a thousand pieces, chew it up, spit it back out, stamp on it and then have the ✨AUDACITY✨ to act like nothing happened. – I loved it.
I found the premise of this book really interesting, can you imagine finding out that today might be your last day to live? That would be so terrifying and sobering at the same time. I really like that it was written in a realistic way, for example, the ‘Last Friend’ app apparently had a few serial killers that pretend to be ‘deckers’ (people that received the death cast call) just to murder people on their end day, making the reason that they die, going on the app to find a last friend in the first place which is so sad to think. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I like that the book wasn’t sugar-coated. It dealt with real-life issues and that was so refreshing to read in a young adult book.
I also really liked the characters in this book, let’s start with Mateo. Sweet, sweet Mateo – so wholesome, the embodiment of everything good, such a sweet character. Mateo was so thoughtful in the sense that he really tried to make sure Rufus had a good end day too, he thought of everyone else before himself. The way he died made me so sad, he was just being his usual selfless self which made it even more unfair 😭 god, this book ruined me.
Then we come to Rufus, to be honest, I found him a little annoying, to begin with, probably because of the way he spoke (constantly saying ‘mad’ before everything) but he was nice to Mateo and encouraged him to be adventurous so I liked that about him. I didn’t like how at every inconvenience his immediate reaction was to try and hit something, as much as he said it ‘wasn’t him’ to hit things but all in all, I think the main characters complimented each other well. I felt it was so unfair that Rufus and Mateo didn’t have more time. but I guess that was kinda the point.
A couple of top tips if you are planning on reading this book, when you get to page 299 – take a deep breath and proceed with caution. also, page 308 is just so cute!
All in all, ‘They Both Die At The End’ made me want to cry, scream, laugh but most of all, it made me want to live. I’m not suicidal in any way, what I mean is, It made me want to really live. The message the book is getting across is that life is short, and you never know which day will be your ‘end day’ so to live life as if every day is your last. Eat your favourite foods, buy that plane/theatre ticket, start learning the language you’ve been wanting to learn, enrol on that course you’ve been putting off for ages, explore the town/city you live in, travel somewhere else and explore, take up a new hobby etc. etc. Basically, just do all the things you’ve always wanted to do, make it happen somehow because life is too short to have regrets or things you wish you’d done but it’s sure as hell long enough to do anything you’ve ever wanted to.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
