They Both Die at the End

When I first picked up They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera, I thought it would be one of those depressing books where the general suckiness of the world is discussed at length before everyone dies. (slight exaggeration, but you get the idea) I was pleasantly surprised when this book ended up being anything but.

Death-Cast is a company that calls you on the last day of your life to inform you about your impending doom, to make sure you live the last hours of your life to the fullest.

Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio get the call on the same day. Mateo’s dad is in hospital, in a coma, and he doesn’t want to tell his best (and only) friend, Lidia, that he is going to die because he’s scared of how she is going to react. Mateo knows that he needs to go outside, he needs to live his last day to the fullest, but maybe he’s destined to stay inside his apartment forever, just like he’s been doing his entire life.

Rufus is beating up his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend when he gets the call. His parents and older sister died in a car accident a year ago so Rufus isn’t afraid of death. But he is afraid on missing out on goodbyes. When the boyfriend he has recently beat up (see above) calls the police on him, he doesn’t get to hug goodbye the only family he had left: his foster brothers, the Plutos.

Rufus and Mateo meet on the Last Friend app and decide to spend their last day together because if there’s one thing worst than dying, it’s dying alone. But neither Mateo nor Rufus counted on the friendship they built, a relationship so life-changing that it just had to happen on their very last day.

They Both Die At The End is a beautiful story about love, friendship, family, about life, and about death. This book made me cry, it made me laugh, and I didn’t want it to end. They Both Die At The End gets a 10/10. I can’t think of a single thing wrong with the story, or anything I would improve on. I loved how a little piece of so many different lives were shown to interweave and every new character made the story more real. An absolute masterpiece, from start to finish.