Author Adam Silvera takes a bleak idea and spins it into a tale of friendship and caution-throwing and, because other characters are like spokes of a Mateo-and-Rufus wheel, we also see how small actions resonate in other lives through casual connections that are almost as meaningful as the purposeful ones. Of course, you know what happens: the title doesn’t lie, but what occurs between the call and the end is phenomenal storytelling. No, you need to read “They Both Die at the End” for yourself. Neither had much time, and telling you any more than that would ruin this futuristically-plausible tale. Maybe someone could show him where the “old Rufus” was. Spend his final hours in jail? No way, so he downloaded the Last Friend app. He couldn’t let his friends watch him die and so, just after Peck called the cops to report the assault, Rufus bolted. He’d been in an orphanage since then because he was only seventeen, almost an adult, a milestone he’d never make. He’d been through this before: four months prior, his parents and his sister had all gotten the call on the same night. No, it was Rufus’ phone that was ringing.
Rufus was beating the heck out of his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend then, and everybody figured Death-Cast was calling Peck. But first, he downloaded the Last Friend app.
No, Mateo Torrez was going to die, just eighteen years old, alone, in a tiny apartment. And that was that: he’d spent all his time with his dad and his gamer stuff and he didn’t exactly have any true friends he could count on. Mateo’s father was in a coma and if he ever woke up, someone else would have to tell him that Mateo was gone. He was going to die, and the worst part was that he was going to die without talking to his dad first. Mateo wasn’t expecting it – but then, who expects a call from the Death-Cast, anyhow? He thought about not answering the phone, but there was no getting out of it: his time was up. Yes, you will die, but what if you knew it was coming – today? Would you reach for your family or, as in the new novel “They Both Die at the End” by Adam Silvera, would you make a new one? The phone call came shortly after midnight. The vast majority of us don’t know when it will come and, though it’s life’s last big surprise, we don’t like to think about it.