They Both Die at the End: TikTok made me buy it! (They Both Die at the End series)

I’ve heard great things about this YA novel, but it’s been on my shelf for ages untouched and begging to be read. I managed to read it on a recent holiday, and wow, it was worth the wait! This title should come with a warning to invest in boxes of Kleenex. It’s well written with beautifully crafted characters. You already know the ending, but you hope with all your heart that it’s a lie. Mateo and Rufus know they will be dead by the end of the day, but they don’t know how they’ll die. They both log on to the Last Friend app, designed to help deckers find someone to spend their final hours with. Some app users are also dying, and others donate their time to help support those who received the call from Death-Cast. Mateo and Rufus are as different as two people can be. Both teenagers, Rufus is streetwise and confident while Mateo barely leaves his bedroom. The relationship that develops between the two is beautiful and honest. I adored Mateo. He was innocent, naïve, empathic, and funny. His story unfolds, and you fall more in love with him with each page. Rufus is fabulous. Although more confident, he has his own heartache and passions. As the two become friends and share their last hours, you can’t help but hope the book’s title is a big fib! Intermingled with Mateo and Rufus’s final adventures are secondary characters who are either employees of Death-Cast who aren’t dying today or fellow deckers trying to come to terms with their own mortality. The storylines are brutal, honest, affectionate, and varied. I loved how all the characters crossed paths sometimes without being a part of each other’s final moments. Told from the various characters viewpoints, you jump from one story to the next with each chapter. It’s been a long time since I sobbed this hard at a book. I was totally broken by it and exhausted after turning the last page. The characters and story stayed with me for a long time after. They Both Die at the End is a beautiful book with outstanding characters and will make you think hard about your own life and how you may or may not waste the days, weeks, months, and years you’ve got left in this world. You don’t need to be a young adult to enjoy this book. If you’re looking for a heart-warming (and heart-breaking) story, then give this a go. You won’t be disappointed – just remember the Kleenex!

Honestly, this has to be one of the best books I have read in the last 3 years! The concept is so unique and it made me feel so many different emotions at once, I loved the representation of the LGBTQIA+ characters and how their appeal in this book didn't feel forced, this book depicted the most exciting and thrilling yet gut wrenching story, and I felt connected to the story and those within it. The only thing I'd have to say is that I think some of the characters were unnecessary and didn't need to be there, but I found their existence easy to ignore whilst immersed in this world. I am so excited to be able to read the prequel and hopefully feel the same way as I did with this book!

Ok so as I was reading the book I was finding it interesting but not much more than that. I finished it and that was that. I tought I would find it sadder than I did. Maybe it was the the headspace I was in. But then I found myself thinking about it for weeks after. I appreciated the interconnected ness of the chapters. It makes you think about cause and effect. It was a good concept that was executed well. At times it felt overly done but on the whole a good read.

This book broke me, I just want to make that very clear before I get into the rest of this review. I don't know why I thought reading a book where the main characters die would be easier because their death is promised in title, it definitely isn't. Mateo lives a quiet life, too afraid of stepping out of his comfort zone to have done much living when he gets the call saying he's going to die. With his father in a coma and his best friend being a single mum to his goddaughter, Mateo feels alone and turns to Last Friend in the hope of finding someone to help him live his life in twenty-four hours. Rufus on the other hand lives the opposite of a quiet life, we meet him in the middle of beating up his ex girlfriend's current boyfriend and then he gets the call. It isn't the way Rufus saw things going, he'd already lost his parents and older sister to the Death-Cast, now it was his turn. As events unfold Rufus finds himself on the run from the police and separated from his friends, so Rufus also finds himself on Last Friend. "No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end." I was really intrigued by the idea of Death-Cast, is life better when you know that you'll get a call on your End Day? Does it eliminate fear and encourage you to make the most of life? For Mateo it didn't, he spent his days indoors playing video games and following the last moments of others who got the call. Rufus says that it doesn't matter and that he and Mateo just need to accept what is happening and live. "...I think you should post your life in colour." Rufus and Mateo share their final hours together through Rufus' Instagram (so Gen Z, so relatable), sharing new experiences, getting to know each other and living as full a life as you possibly can in a day. For such an upsetting book there was some really touching moments that I don't want to ruin for any potential readers, but Mateo and his lego house made me very warm and fuzzy. "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." Throughout the book there are stories from other characters, one of those characters is Deidre Clayton, who goes through a tough time dealing with the whole premise of the Death-Cast and has suicidal thoughts because of it. Honestly one of my first thoughts about the subject when I read about it was how could anyone deal with the knowledge that one day their phone will ring and there's nothing you can do to change things? In life you like to think that death can be avoided, if you get in an accident that you could be helped, you can get treatment for illness and get better. The call is a unavoidable death sentence, and that's scary. "You can't go around telling people you wanna be a tree and expect them to take you seriously." Something I really liked about the book is the different conversations and opinions about the afterlife. For someone who is afraid of death, yes that's me -and I'm reading a book about so much death, it was really comforting for me to think about what could happen after death, some things I've never thought about. Death is so uncertain and there's no way to ever know what really happens, so we can choose to believe whatever we want if it helps us to navigate the world. It does help, or at least it does for me. "I will make it so easy for you to find me. Neon signs. Marching bands." Mateo and Rufus really were the most perfect characters to lead me through this story. Of course it's a curse that they didn't meet sooner but the time they did have together was made so special by their willingness to go all out and just be themselves. The two of them lived out what would have been months of a new friendship, in a single day, and it was beautiful. I could go on and on about this book, there's characters I haven't covered who are amazing but I want to leave something for anyone reading this who is going to pick up the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes YA/LGBTQ+ reads, obviously there is some sensitive topics in this book so please read at your own discretion and do so in the comfort of your own home with a partner or pet or stuffed animal nearby for all the cuddles -you're going to need a lot.

One of my favourite books ever

I feel like I should have expected this. The title, the book description, the fact that the last two Adam Silvera books have made me sad, this is no different. This story is so raw, and it makes no secret what's coming at the end, but the journey is still a heartfelt one about two teenage boys who get their Death-Cast calls too soon. This story is about Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio and how to choose to spend their End Day. What this means is that a company known as Death-Cast makes calls between the hours of midnight and 3:00 a.m. to people who will die before the day is out. Everyone handles the calls different, and there are businesses and "perks", if you will, for how people choose to spend their End Day. Mateo Torrez is a gay Puerto-Rican who has been living on his own ever since his dad landed in a coma two weeks previous. He's a bit of an introvert and spends his time looking up how others spend their End Days, fearful and anxious of the day he'll get the call. Rufus Emeterio is a bisexual Cuban-American and gets his call when he's out with his friends, beating up on his ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend. In any other time, Mateo and Rufus might seem like polar opposites, but wanting to be near other people on their End Day brings them together for a day that's full of life like they've never lived before. This story has a very interesting format to it. The chapters told from Mateo and Rufus' POV are all in first-person present, and then there are all the chapters that are told from a wide variety of characters. These are people who only make a passing down the street, or who are close to Mateo and Rufus. But their stories are told in third-person present. It's certainly different. I'm not a fan at all of stories in third-person present, but the author has got me so wrapped up in the story and the characters' lives, that the story chapters from the secondary characters' POV, don't bother me at all and I winded up quite living the format and execution of the storylines. I appreciate how diverse the cast is, and the dark humor that goes with an otherwise potentially grim story. I feel like I should point out that there is, however, that there is a throwaway line about a black character’s name that doesn’t sit well with me. The different aspects involving death are well thought out. Death is the one thing that's inescapable for all humans, but what if we're given the chance to know ahead of time that's it's coming within the next 24 hours? Would we bunker down, hoping to outwit death? Put our affairs in order? Or try to live out the remainder of your life in the fullest way possible? There's something tragic about the book, that the characters are seventeen and eighteen, and still manage to be so...level-headed about it all. Mateo is the sweetest, most pure cinnamon roll and I loved seeing him being able to conquer his fear, a little bit at a time, because he wants to. Rufus is the opposite of Mateo. He's a little loud and rough along the edges compared to Mateo, but there was a time where he had a loving family, and the day they got their Death-Cast call unsettled something in him. He has the Plutos, a name for the kids who live alongside him at a foster home, but when things force him out to find a friend to hang out with, he compliments Mateo in every way. The emotions of all the characters in this story is raw, and definitely not a book you can read without a box of tissues nearby. Although Death-Cast isn't real, the emotions are. I love Mateo and I love Rufus. Their fears, their excitement, it all feels so, so real. It's not really a story with a romance, and yet, for the time period the book spans, the relationship that develops between Mateo and Rufus doesn't feel like an insta-love story. It's one where friendship and love can manifest when you know you may never have it again. They Both Die at the End is a gripping story about life. Mateo and Rufus are the loveliest characters, and Adam Silvera has yet again managed to make me sob through a book and thanking him for it after. ***Thank you to HarperCollins for providing me with an e-ARC of this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review***

Really really good book!

Me llegó el perfectas condiciones y a tiempo, el libro es increíble.

Great read 💯

The book cover is so pretty...can't wait to start reading it. It's in my tbr.