Publishers Weekly
★ 07/10/2017
Soon after Rufus Emeterio, 17, and Mateo Torrez, 18, receive midnight phone calls from Death-Cast, a service that notifies those with less than 24 hours to live, the New York City teenagers connect via the Last Friend app and decide to spend their final hours together. Both have been dealt harsh hands even before getting the call: Mateo’s mother died giving birth to him and his father’s in a coma. Rufus is the only survivor of a car crash that killed his entire family. Over the course of an eventful day, these thoughtful young men speak honestly and movingly about their fate, their anger at its unfairness, and what it means to be alive, until their budding friendship organically turns into something more. Each tells his part of the story in alternating, time-stamped chapters. Other voices—mostly friends from Rufus’s foster home and people they encounter—fill out the narrative, revealing the influence both boys have had on those around them. It hardly matters that the title telegraphs the ending; it’s still heartbreaking when it arrives. Ages 14–up. Agent: Brooks Sherman, Janklow & Nesbit. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
A bold, lovely, and haunting story of loss, hope, and the redeeming power of friendship.” — Lauren Oliver, New York Times bestselling author of Before I Fall
★”Extraordinary and unforgettable.” — Booklist (starred review)
★”It’s another standout from Silvera. Engrossing, contemplative, and as heart-wrenching as the title promises.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
★”Over the course of an eventful day, these thoughtful young men speak honestly and movingly about their fate, their anger at its unfairness, and what it means to be alive, until their budding friendship organically turns into something more.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
★ “Silvera continues to masterfully integrate diversity, disability, and young queer voices into an appealing story with a lot of heart. A must-have for YA shelves.” — School Library Journal (starred review)
“Adam Silvera uses his ample skill to force readers to examine how they live life now and how they want to live it. They Both Die at the End is a prime example of his skill at asking the most relevant questions of all of us.” — Teen Vogue
“They Both Die at the End is beautiful and charged with emotion, and Silvera’s best work to date.” — Jordan April, The River’s End Bookstore, for the Autumn 2017 Teen Indie Next List
“Silvera not only poignantly captures the raw emotion of facing your own morality, but creates such relatable and authentic characters you want to follow on their journey. His gorgeous writing and wonderful storytelling will wreck you in the very best possible way.” — Buzzfeed
“Themes of friendship, love, loss, and fate combine in this novel that should be read with a box of tissues close at hand.” — Brightly
Jordan April
They Both Die at the End is beautiful and charged with emotion, and Silvera’s best work to date.
Lauren Oliver
A bold, lovely, and haunting story of loss, hope, and the redeeming power of friendship.
Teen Vogue
Adam Silvera uses his ample skill to force readers to examine how they live life now and how they want to live it. They Both Die at the End is a prime example of his skill at asking the most relevant questions of all of us.
Brightly
Themes of friendship, love, loss, and fate combine in this novel that should be read with a box of tissues close at hand.
Buzzfeed
Silvera not only poignantly captures the raw emotion of facing your own morality, but creates such relatable and authentic characters you want to follow on their journey. His gorgeous writing and wonderful storytelling will wreck you in the very best possible way.
Booklist (starred review)
★”Extraordinary and unforgettable.
Booklist (starred review)
★”Extraordinary and unforgettable.
Brightly.com
Themes of friendship, love, loss, and fate combine in this novel that should be read with a box of tissues close at hand.
School Library Journal
★ 08/01/2017
Gr 9 Up—Everyone who is going to die on a given day gets a call to let them know; not the when, or the how, or the why, but just notification that they will die on that day. Mateo and Rufus each get that call and are facing their last day without a loved one. But there's an app for that. Combining a well-realized alternative present with a lovely romance, Silvera's latest delivers what readers want in a book about dying teens. There's no avoiding the cliches that go along with the idea that an impending end makes life more meaningful, but recasting a Lurlene McDaniel-style doomed teen romance with Latinx queer boys and having the societal changes wink at those clichés softens them and makes a better storytelling device. The overarching structure of meaningful coincidences making a magical day in New York has its predecessors—Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Nicola Yoon's The Sun Is Also a Star being prime examples—but this title is a deft exploration of that trope. Silvera continues to masterfully integrate diversity, disability, and young queer voices into an appealing story with a lot of heart. VERDICT While most of the elements and themes of this work are not new, they are combined, realized, and diversified expertly in this title. A must-have for YA shelves.—L. Lee Butler, Hart Middle School, Washington, DC
NOVEMBER 2017 - AudioFile
In this dystopian world, Death-Cast notifies those who have only a day to live. Mateo and Rufus are two teens who get that early morning call. Michael Crouch and Robbie Daymond narrate first-person chapters that recount their feelings upon receiving the fateful news. Crouch animates Mateo, an anxious 18-year-old who regrets all the years his fears have stopped him from living. Daymond delivers 17-year-old Rufus’s sarcasm, bitterness, and fatalism, which began when his whole family died in a car crash and he was sent to foster care. When the two find each other through the Last Friend app, Crouch and Daymond register their tenuous feelings, which soon turn to fondness and deepen into more. Bahni Turpin narrates short passages of third-person exposition that gives more context to Mateo and Rufus’s world. S.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2017-06-05
What would you do with one day left to live?In an alternate present, a company named Death-Cast calls Deckers—people who will die within the coming day—to inform them of their impending deaths, though not how they will happen. The End Day call comes for two teenagers living in New York City: Puerto Rican Mateo and bisexual Cuban-American foster kid Rufus. Rufus needs company after a violent act puts cops on his tail and lands his friends in jail; Mateo wants someone to push him past his comfort zone after a lifetime of playing it safe. The two meet through Last Friend, an app that connects lonely Deckers (one of many ways in which Death-Cast influences social media). Mateo and Rufus set out to seize the day together in their final hours, during which their deepening friendship blossoms into something more. Present-tense chapters, short and time-stamped, primarily feature the protagonists' distinctive first-person narrations. Fleeting third-person chapters give windows into the lives of other characters they encounter, underscoring how even a tiny action can change the course of someone else's life. It's another standout from Silvera (History Is All You Left Me, 2017, etc.), who here grapples gracefully with heavy questions about death and the meaning of a life well-lived. Engrossing, contemplative, and as heart-wrenching as the title promises. (Speculative fiction. 13-adult).
