I initially didn’t care for Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. The premise was intriguing: two teenagers are told by a service called Death-Cast that they will die in the next twenty four hours. It is 2017 and Death-Cast is now an inevitable part of people’s lives. Everyone is given a call when the time comes and told the end is nigh.
It wasn’t the main characters that bothered me, really. Mateo and Rufus meet through an app called Last Friend. It’s a place where Deckers–those who are doomed to die after they receive the call–can make a friend during their last hours. Mateo and Rufus are both Deckers, both with absent parents. Mateo’s mother died at his birth and his father is in a coma. Rufus lost his mother, father and sister to a car crash that he survived. Mateo is kind and afraid to truly live. Rufus is brave and brash, more street-wise than Mateo. During the last day of their lives, they have many experiences and grow very close. They say goodbye to friends. They do things that make them feel alive, even as their death looms.
I read at least half of the book impatient with what seemed to be simplistic themes, forced special moments, Rufus’s endless use of the word “mad” and “dope.” I resisted the book, refusing to feel anything about the characters, their fears or triumphs. Very rude of me. But as the book went on, I really hooked into the story and the growing love between Mateo and Rufus. I started to feel dread knowing these characters were going to die (no spoiler, the title is not a metaphor). Silvera also has other characters weave in and out of the story (the chapters flip flop between POVs). There is never any explanation about how Death-Cast came to be, or even what purpose it serves beyond forecasting someone’s demise.
The end sold me on the book. It was very well done, and I sit here thinking of the characters and how attached I got to them. Sometimes I’m just a cranky reader, and I don’t know why. When a book has its heart on its sleeve, I feel resistance to its effects. But I’ll always surrender to a good, well meaning book in the end. It’s why I love to read–different stories make me feel different things, and I get in touch with what it means to be human. In this They Both Die at the End succeeds.