They Both Die at the End

I won’t get over Mateo and Rufus anytime soon. I read this at my granddaughter’s recommendation, and the title made me nervous because I’m all about happy endings. Regardless, I’m really glad I read this book and cannot salute Adam Silvera enough for a remarkable, haunting, sweet, tragic yet inspirational story that I could not put down. These two guys are going to be with me for a very long time.

Didn’t care for the ending

This book, ugh, where do I even start. The book was so original and unique, as were the characters. I instantly fell in love and couldn’t put it down. And even though the title tells you what happens, nothing can prepare you for it. I cried so hard when I finished it. You will fall in love with the story, with the characters, and their journey. I highly recommend this book.

Unlike the title, this book is about living life to the fullest. I loved the characters and the message. Easy to read and kept me wanting more.

Oh my. I like the characters in a book as the best part… But, they die in the end… I was sad from the beginning… I took a long time to inch through, but I had to return everyday.. Hold my breath… I’m not happy with it, but it has made me think a lot. I like this author and have already started reading another book by him… But happier.

I put off reading this one for a long time. With a title like They Both Die at the End, I thought the book would be both insanely depressing and hard to get into considering the ending is in the title of the book. Silvera has always been open and adamant to new readers that the title of the novel is true, so I wasn’t expecting any kind of plot twists and figured the book would be predictable. And it was, to an extent. They both die at the end. But the book is so much more than its ending, and as cheesy as it sounds, more about the journey.

We aren’t ever given an explanation for the events that set the novel in motion. This book operates in a world where a government system called Death-Cast can predict all the people who are going to die on that day, and give them a call in the early hours of the morning so they can have a full, final day. They aren’t allowed to tell the public how they know, how they die, or any information they can use to avoid it. No one has ever avoided their death when Death-Cast comes calling, and a whole industry has sprung up in the wake of Death-Cast, including Last Friend, the app that Rufus and Mateo use to connect with one another. I actually really liked this kind of setup; it was initially kind of frustrating to be thrown into a world without any explanation for this radical new system, but it removed so much of the world-building work I’m used to reading. We get a few jokes about how the Death-Cast system came into being (like how the government has a precognitive alien chained in the bathtub), but overall the novel is concerned with more important, personal things. Silvera was able to center the story around the two boys and create a meaningful narrative in a relatively short amount of time because he spends much less time on world-building and explaining everything. It was a new way to tell a story, and it worked out really well.

Without the world-building, Rufus and Mateo are the heart of this story. And what a heart. I usually go in more for the slow-burn, the romance that takes weeks of the characters dancing around each other and having late-night, deep conversations, and yet somehow Silvera still had me weeping over a romance that was less than a day old. The boys themselves are aware of how little time they’ve known each other, how they really don’t know a ton about each other’s lives or histories, but they know that death is coming today and that they don’t want to be alone. And that’s enough. We could get into the nitpicky reasoning of how well this romance would last had Mateo and Rufus escaped their fates, but I don’t really want to do that. I think their romance stands strong as it is. They find each other at the end of all things, and learn from each other. Rufus struggles with expressing his emotions and his survivor’s guilt about being the only remaining member of his family, while Mateo suffers from crippling anxiety bordering on agoraphobia, alone with his father in a coma. The two of them don’t find their problems erased in one night, but together they can take the first steps towards healing. Which, of course, makes their cut-off potential even sadder at the novel’s close.

Because they both die at the end.

It’s in the title, I don’t consider it a spoiler, and I knew it was coming, but goddamn. The fact that Silvera was able to build up such an amazing love story within just a day and have me so attached to these boys and their potential shows an astronomical use of emotional language, and the fact that he decided to make it a tragedy is heart-wrenching. We don’t have many tragedies on the market these days, much less YA tragedies, much less LGBT+ YA tragedies. We’ve moved away from burying our gays, for a good reason, but Rufus and Mateo don’t die in service of a heterosexual couple or as tragedy porn. Silvera is an openly gay man, and it’s obvious that he’s put a lot of himself into these characters (he admits to it in the author’s note). This is a story about queer love healing and helping, how coming to terms with yourself can be restorative in the darkest hours, and Silvera nailed it. Their relationship and the novel couldn’t exist without the knowledge that both of these characters know their end is coming.

There was a reason why this book didn’t get five stars, but it didn’t have anything to do with Rufus and Mateo’s story, which was absolutely phenomenal. There are a few other perspectives this novel is told from, minor characters who interact on minimal levels with the boys’ (like a customer service worker who serves them) and do not have any strong impact on the story. I understood what Silvera was trying to do. These perspectives round out the world of Death-Cast, as told by workers who have to inform people they are dying today or people who gave been given the alert and are driven to insanity by it. There are a few chapters from the perspective of the boys’ friends, which strengthen the relationships a little. But overall, they just felt excessive. Like I talked about earlier, Silvera largely abandons world-building in favor of creating a story that tightly focuses on Rufus and Mateo’s emotional journey, so this minor effort to expand the world doesn’t really work. It’s a halfway measure to show how Death-Cast affects the world around the boys’, but if we’re not going to fully world-build, I would have rather the novel focuses just on Rufus and Mateo, maybe one or two of their friends. But the service worker, the police officer the boys never actually interact with, the movie star who is dying on the same day, all unnecessary. Rufus and Mateo’s story was perfect as it was, without all the extra viewpoints.

They Both Die at the End is one of the most meaningful and impactful books I’ve read in a long time. Most of my LGBT+ reads are positive and reaffirming, because that’s what I like after a lifetime of consuming negative queer content, but this book was just on a whole other level. It was sad, yes, but ultimately inspirational and important to me. I know this book is fairly popular, and I can easily see and look forward to it becoming one of the defining YA queer novels for our generation.

review blog

This book left me so sad. I read this book because of tiktok and I was very exited. The only reason I am giving it a 4 star rating is because ei believe it was over hyped. I read this book with the intention I would bawl my eyes out but that was not the case. I did shed some tears but I was no heart broken. I really loved the ending and the guy + guy love.

This book is a montage of tears and love and hope’

“For those who need a reminder to make everyday count”

Imagine getting a call telling you got 24 hours before you die 24 hour to do everything you want, 24 hours to be what ever version of yourself you want to be, to be with people you want to, to say all the first his and hellos and goodbyes.
When you think about it it’s not sponging your life it’s just telling you when you gonna die. Will it be a good thing? Or bad? Think all the goodbyes you will get to say before you die because you are not dyeing a sudden death or you would spend the whole day thinking of all the happy memories you won’t be able to make and obsessing about whole you never lived and now you are about to die. Hard to decide right.
Would you everything you wanted to if you knew you are going to die in next 24 hours? Or would you make the excuses you been making all your life. Excuses because you were afraid of the outcome, afraid to stick your neck out and hope.
Think about all the stories of strangers you won’t get to know, all the possible great friendship you never had because, the places you won’t never visit, the food you won’t get to try, books you won’t ever have time to read, all the things you won’t get to say to the people you love, or to be with them to share the thousands of happy moments about to come.
This book makes you appreciate life so much more to think about the one’s you love, add more values to the little afternoon dances barefoot on the kitchen floor in the summer.

I hated this book so much I can’t really hate it. It is so good; the ending of course is self-explanatory., But this is one of the few books that have managed to actually make me choke on my own tears. I like the charcters. And just wanted to say the author of this book wants us to cry. (He literally said it) but I don’t really like the fact that in some but few places in the book its.. boring but very very little it’s like 2 mins without really something.

//TW: death, violence, mentions of suicide, alcohol, drugs, mentions of mature content//

All quotes are taken from They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera.

~Quick Statistics~
Overall: 5/5 Stars
Plot: 5/5 Stars
Setting: 5/5 Stars
Characters: 5/5 Stars
Writing: 5/5 Stars
Memorability: 5/5 Stars
“But no matter what choices we make – solo or together – our finish line remains the same … No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end.”
~Quick Review~
This spectacular novel brought me to tears and tore my heart out. Somehow, despite the title, I expected a happy ending and some long-lasting love story. Don’t we all expect that in real-life as well? But the reality is that we all take our numbered days for granted, and no one is guaranteed a lifetime.

They Both Die at the End brings life into perspective and reminds me that I should live every day like my last, because it just might be.

“I kiss the guy who brought me to life on the day we’re going to die.”

~Other Information~
Publisher: Quill Tree Books
Page Count: 389 pages

“Twelve hours ago I received the phone call telling me I’m going to die today, and I’m more alive now than I was then.”

~Book Description (via Goodreads)~
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.

~Characters~
The novel splits between multiple points of view, but primarily focuses upon Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio. Mateo is currently living alone, safe and comfortable, in his apartment. His father is in the hospital in a coma, and his mom is dead. He receives a call saying that he will die sometime on September 5. Panicked by his impending doom, Mateo meets up with Rufus, a lively young man whose family died in a car accident. Rufus also received the call that fateful day.

Both of these characters are so unique and different from each other. Yet, they somehow are able to come together and bring out the best in one another on their last day. The story explores Mateo and Rufus’ growth on their last day and allows these beautiful and well-written characters to be raw and alive as their lives come to an end.

~Writing and Setting~
Adam Silvera’s writing in this novel conveyed so much urgency, panic, and life. The way he wrote these characters’ stories had me constantly thinking ‘What would I do if I knew today was my last day?’ And I truly do not know. Would I find the Rufus to my Mateo? The story felt very fast paced and added to the panic of the story.

They Both Die at the End takes place in a world where one is able to know when they will die, just not how. It seems that the world has become more cruel and desensitized to the death of others. Why should you feel bad for someone who is going to die, if they have this last day to live their life?

~Plot~
The biggest surprise in They Both Die at the End is that there is none; it is exactly what you would expect. While fast-paced and beautiful, the reader knows what to expect and knows there is no way out of it… both Mateo and Rufus will die no matter what. The journey along the way is a mixture of horrible and magnificent interactions between Mateo, Rufus, and the world. Knowing they will die allows the story to be so vulnerable, it hurts. I was never bored with this novel, and even snuck my tiny flashlight in my room so that I could read without waking up everyone else in my house. Two a.m. was kind to me in allowing me to read just another chapter of this novel every night.

~Overall Review~
This novel tore at my heartstrings and absolutely destroyed me. It’s so painful to practically scream at the characters not to do something and have their lives end up in absolute disaster because (surprise, surprise!) the characters cannot hear you and don’t even realize you exist.

“My Last Message would be to find your people. And to treat each day like a lifetime.”