Book for the: Freezer!!!

They Both Die At The End

By Adam Silvera

Ok, so let me start by saying I LOVED this book… but please don’t be like me and ignore the title. It’s not a metaphor - this book is about two teenage boys who receive a call notifying them that, today, they will die. We don’t know when or how, just that it will be within the next 24 hours.

Silvera uses his normal style of the novel being rooted in the present with a twist of sci-fi to deliver that extra punch. I may have been known to call Adam Silvera an evil Slytherin genius for his concepts and plot twists… but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. I really never learn and I keep reading his books!!!

But in all honestly, I love a book that grabs you by the shoulders, makes you sit up and listen to what it has to say and then smacks you with emotion. I admire authors who can do that so this is not a criticism, just a book for the freezer!

Once the two main characters, Mateo and Rufus, get the call, they both decide to find a last friend for the day and so the story starts.

They Both Die At The End caught me by surprise – if I’m honest I was listening to the audio book and didn’t like the voices, so it took me a whilst to get into it. I was listening whilst running and at one point gave it a month's break.

But then I started listening again and suddenly I was screaming at my phone and as if by magic these characters had wormed their way into my heart! I have no idea how Silvera does it but I went from not really caring about the characters to loving them - all within the same chapter.

I think, for me, the start was a little slow and it took a while for the characters to meet but, once they did meet, I was hooked.

I was a straight-up wreck with this book. I was swooooning (but I’m sorry, no, I cannot put this under Swoon status!!!!), cheering, laughing and crying so hard, I went through half a box of tissues. I don’t know whether this story was brilliant or cruel but I loved it.

The character development was on-point and I was almost proud to be reading their journey of just one day. This book also brought in my favourite guilty pleasure of friends that just shouldn’t work. But boy did they work! (And I’m swooning again!!!)

So you may be asking, where does the Freezer status come into this? Go back to the title. No spoilers here but this is a story that looks at how you would spend your last day on Earth if you knew you were going to die. These are two teenagers who thought they had their whole lives ahead of them and are suddenly hit by the reality that they only have today but there is so much they want to do. Mateo is scared of his own shadow and Rufus is falling into a life of being someone he doesn’t want to be. This is their chance to change before it’s too late.

It was both a gripping and utterly heart-breaking concept that will no doubt be a brilliant lesson for teenagers, but had me wanting to shut the book at every stage. At times the thought of where this book was heading was too much for me, yet I couldn’t stop listening.

If you love a good life lesson or emotional punch, this is the book for you! Just have a box of tissues and a family size bag of chocolate prepared for the emotional rollercoaster you will be thrown into.