They Both Die at the End

So. It’s definitely been a while. Jobs and work and holidays have a way of sucking the life out of everything, which I’m sure everyone experiences and knows about from personal situations, but still. This constitutes my measly excuse for why I haven’t read (and written) a book review in quite some time. My deepest apologies.

And the book I am starting out with again is quite the bold one, if I do say so myself. They Both Die At the End by Adam Silvera had graced the Barnes & Noble shelves for quite some time before I gained enough courage to actually buy it and eventually finish it. 

With a title like They Both Die At the End the scene of Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect saying, “Yeah, better not” about taking crack fits the image of reading They Both Die At the End perfectly. The title discloses everything important you need to know and I don’t feel bad sharing it because it’s not much of a spoiler is it? Both of the main characters die at the end. Shocker.

So, if you like your lovely cinnamon roll fictional characters to live happy, fulfilled, and healthy lives I would steer clear from this novel and run far, far away. They aren’t particularly happy, are definitely not fulfilled since the two main characters, Rufus and Mateo, are only seventeen and eighteen respectively, and they definitely don’t live….so. Yeah.

I had my doubts about this book, especially at the beginning. It has it draws with the nice aesthetic cover (the shadow of death or a grim reaper in their combined shadows in the snow is a whole host of symbolism), and not to mention the fact that both of our main characters are Hispanic and both represent different spectrums of the LGBTQ+ community with bisexuality as a preference and a brief discussion of recognizing ones own sexual fluidity.

However, that being said, the novel is quite horrific in a lot of ways that I found downright disturbing and not completely alleviated by the more overarching themes of love, carpe diem, and friendship.

Adam Silvera reminds me of Stephen King in the opinion that I personally believe that Stephen King would have become a serial killer if he had not become an author. The brain truly needs to work in a special way in order to write about killer clowns and children in sewers and a plethora of other horror and terror elements. 

Likewise, Mr. Silvera must have some pretty gruesome experiences and or thoughts on social media and how it affects our world in order to compose a book like They Both Die At the End.

I struggled with the beginning because of how terribly humanity was depicted. Of course, the evil vs. good of humanity is a common theme throughout literature, dating back to the bible and even before. However, Silvera portrays the world in a way where social media has become so intrinsic in our everyday lives that even death and life doesn’t seem to matter as much.

To me it was absolutely petrifying and alarming.  Maybe because it hit a little too close to home. Or maybe because it was a world so familiar, yet so alien that my discomfort levels shot through the roof. There were moments that I wanted to put down the book and never pick it up again (which I almost never do).

The ending does halfway redeem itself with the relationship that Mateo and Rufus form on their last days of life and the ways their friends support and help them along the way. The issue is that the horror from the beginning lingers far into the ending, and while I can’t say the ending wasn't bittersweet, the morality of friendship and love that Adam Silvera is advertising is tainted by the shallowness and callousness that he created and grew his fictional world in the first place.

For those of you that might be completely lost or puzzled, the novel at its core depicts the story of two young men living their last days after being told that they were going to die within the next 24 hours.

The book lives in a world where a company somehow has the knowledge of what day you will die (but not how or even what time). The impossibility of the logistics of this struck me throughout the entire novel, but Silvera does not address it which I find bizarre and lovingly call a case of Author-Oblivion.

Mateo and Rufus, learning they are going to die, sign up to make a last friend via an app on their phone to spend the day with since neither of them have family or friends available, which I won’t get into here (you’ll have to read the book to find out those juicy details). The whole plot irked me in a way that an irritating itch does. It doesn’t make much sense, but you can’t get rid of it so you kinda just ignore it and move on with your day.

The ending also leaves you hanging as a reader which is a particular pet-peeve of mine. If I am going to read your 300+ page book I would like to have everything tied up in a neat little bow. I know not everyone might feel that way, but the ambiguous ending was irritating rather than mysterious.

In conclusion, They Both Die At the End is an interesting read, but not a recommended choice if you’ve gone through the process of loving and losing someone. The book at first makes death look like a passing fancy and that theme carried through even until the aborted end. Read at your own discretion.

Recommendation: “Yeah, better not”- Fat Amy, Pitch Perfect

Score: 4/10