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MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE BOOK: Before you call me heartless and immune to the power of diverse books, please know I appreciated the solemness of this book. I appreciate it going against the grain. The reason this is not rated higher for me was that it made me anxious. Every single time I picked it up. The only other book that made me feel this way was I'll Give You the Sun.
CHARACTERS/DYNAMICS: Mateo: Mateo is our soft gay -. I totally relate to his thought process, which initially made me not want to read on. I like reading different perspectives sometimes. They bring the unexpected! As the story progresses, all I cared about was his unfortunate story.
Rufus: Rufus was rad to start off with, but I soon felt disconnect to his life-story. Also I got sick of him saying “yo”, “mad” and “man”. It seemed way to artificial, but who am I to judge---
PLOT: It's modern day, but allegedly everyone (though I'm sure it's more exclusively Americans) are told the day they're going to die. The catch: it's on the day, usually at 12am.
Mateo and Rufus are like: oh man that blows.
So through the beauty of social media, they befriend each other. They say goodbye.
That's about it.
I was expecting cooler sci-fi elements where they try to defy the system or discover how the Death Cast works.
STRUCTURE: This story alternates mainly between Mateo and Rufus, but there are fun elements of other characters who cross paths with the boys, who may or may not be dying. I really enjoyed Silvera starting each new perspective with “___ is/not going to die today, because Death Cast did/not call them.”
THEMES:
- … Death
- gay latin dudes
- all the sad moments in John Green but slightly warped and stretched so it's a bit “meh” than WOW KILL ME.
THE ENDING: (view spoiler) It was a little drawn out, since this entire book is leading to their deaths. I was still surprised about Mateo at the end, though. So… Props to that!
IMPACT: Yeah so I now know that Silvera certainly isn't so epically profound for me, but I do appreciate his writing style. It's poetic. However, I generally dislike YA contemporary and his writing is no exception for turning me over.
