They Both Die At The End is a fascinating speculative-YA about living vs. dying. It also features a gay Puerto-Rican main character and a bisexual Cuban main character, and I am ALL ABOUT this own voice representation.
As always, Adam’s writing style is wonderful. His teens always speak like teens – the excessive but realistic amount of times Rufus said “mad” really spoke to the New Yorker in me. He excels in striking the correct balance between depth and comedy, and his talent for dark humor shined in this book. I didn’t know it was possible to laugh so much on the last day of two boys’ lives, but it happened.
Normally, I’m not a big fan of books that have super insignificant characters as an additional perspective, but I think it worked well for this book. Throughout the novel, there are maybe 10 people additionally to Mateo and Rufus that get at least one chapter in regards to if they are dying or not today. Though I’m usually not pleased with this sort of format, it was executed extremely well. It gave us a lot of insight into how DeathCast has affected others, and it was interesting to see how so many of these seemingly unimportant characters were connected to the larger part of the story.
This book raises some powerful questions on fate, whether our lives (and death) are set in stone, or do we have the power to change it, and what it means to truly live. I loved this book and it brought tears to my eyes.
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