Format: Paperback
Release Date: September 5th, 2017
Age: Young Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi – Contemporary
Goodreads
Rating: 4/5 Stars
So my rating for this is 4, but it’s probably more around the 3.5 mark – it’s a good book, just one I didn’t like as much as I thought I would, but I’m totally fine with that because of my specific reaction to this novel.
They Both Die at the End follows the story of Mateo and Rufus, who live in an alternate version of our reality where, on the day you die, you get contacted by Death-Cast, who inform you it is your End Day. When both boys are contacted, their End Days don’t start exactly as they’d like them to, and the boys find themselves connecting over the Last Friend app. Determined to make the most of their final day, they meet up, and embark on an adventure.
Silvera does a lot of good things in this book. We get the groundwork for both characters laid out really well, as our first time meeting them is when they get the call. At this point, Mateo is home, alone, his father in a coma in hospital, and Rufus is with his foster brothers, beating up his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. As the story unfolds, we see both boys coming to terms with their upcoming deaths, embracing the various options available for ‘Deckers’, and making their amends where they can.
I found it really interesting the way Death-Cast and their ability to predict death has impacted society. Mateo finds it strange and incomprehensible that his mother wouldn’t have had a call telling her it’s her last day. As Mateo is young himself, it shows how rapidly things have changed and how quickly. This is where I wished there was a little bit more – the world seems to have adjusted quite quickly to Death Cast in a really short space of time, as you only only have one generation who have never lived without it. I know there is a prequel, and I suspect (and hope!) the questions I have about how this world came to be like this might be answered in that one, as I have quite a few!
It’s almost borderline dystopian, the way everyone has just accepted this is how it is now. But what really stands out is this world seems to be full of so much more death? The way people accept it and witness it and everyone knows someone who has died, to a point it starts to feel kind of depressing. Deaths don’t seem to be largely contained to an older or sick population, though at one point we do see that there are people with terminal illnesses who get the call, and like Mateo and Rufus they set out to fully embrace their last day. Instead, we see plenty of instances of younger people dealing with the call, in various ways, and everyone seems to have known at least one – if not more – people who died tragically, and young.
The relationships here are core to the story, and though Rufus and Mateo meet out of a desire not to be alone, their bond deepens, as they share their lives and prepare to share their deaths. There’s something else going on, too, as alongside Rufus’s and Mateo’s POVs, we get to see other characters, and see how they link into Rufus and Mateo and each other. For every one of these chapters, we get a short sentence saying if Death-Cast did or did not call that character. And we see throughout how different people have reacted to their situation, whether it’s learning a loved one is going to die or that they will die themselves before the day is out.
It gives it the ‘no one is alone’ sense, which is good for a book that deals so much with death, and especially young death. Which brings me onto why this didn’t hit the 5 star mark for me. This book is apparently incredibly popular among teens, and it really does land so well in the YA market. This is a really good thing. There was stuff here I think I wouldn’t have necessarily questioned as much if I read it as a young adult, and the kind of feelings that are thrown out here suit the teenage characters so, so much – they act as teenagers, as they rightly should, and I definitely think if you have or know kids in the YA age bracket, and they haven’t read this yet, I really recommend it for them.
Yes, this is a good book, but it’s just one of those times I, personally, don’t feel as deeply towards it as others undoubtably will.
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