They Both Die at the End

They Both Die at the End

Adam Silvera

4 stars

“No one goes on, but what we leave behind keeps us alive for someone else”

Imagine you are told you have 24-hours to live. What would you want to do with your remaining time? That is the sentence that got me interested in this book and I knew I had to read it. It is a complex question, one that has many answers, and I wanted to know how was Adam Silvera going to answer it.

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.

This book is incredible written, you know what is going to happen, it´s right there in the title, and still, the author managed to get me to care about the characters and root for them to beat the odds. The writing style is simple and beautiful, we follow two boys on their last day on earth and we get to experience all of their final adventures with them. I was enchanted by the story and the idea behind it.

The best parts of the book were the beginning and the end, they pack a punch, and although there is no plot twist, it still hits you right in the feels. The middle part did drag a little, specially the other POV´s that weren’t Mateo and Rufus, I really didn’t care for those. But overall it was an incredible book and story.

My favorite aspect of the book was the friendship, I love how both Rufus and Mateo want to spend their last day together while being with their respective friends and love ones. The adventures the main characters take in their last day are fun, thrilling and even though they are a little unbelievable, I still want to do stuff like that.

The only thing I didn’t quite enjoy about this book, was the romance, it felt rushed and very insta-love. In my opinion there was no need, no need to complicate a beautiful friendship story with a quick and out of nowhere romance. However, excluding the romance aspect this was still a very enjoyable book to read.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, the idea behind it is so fascinated and it got me thinking about what I would do. I do recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the topic and I am glad this was my first Adam Silvera book (I will read others).

“Entire lives aren’t lessons, but there are lessons in lives”