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They Both Die at the End
I'm sure I picked up They Both Die at the End because the concept intrigued me, and I'm sure I lost a lot of interest in it after I never got around to reading past the first twenty pages and then the edition I read of Simon and the Homo Sapiens Agenda included the author of this one gushing about its IMO rather modest qualities in the appendixes.
Plot summary: Picture New York, except in a world where Harry Potter is named "Scorpius Hawthorne" and Draco Malfoy is latino and there exists an agency that knows when your life ends. And when it's your turn, they'll call you up a minute after midnight and tell you that this'll be the day that you die. This is the story about eighteen year old Mateo and Rufus, who find each other on the day they get the call.
Not to spoil stuff, but there's really not a lot to spoil about this. Mateo and Rufus have one day left to live and haven't exactly got their bucket lists in order, and so stroll around the city and try to figure out how to make their last day one that matters. There are many ways to do that, I'm sure, but our heroes limit themselves to the mainly trivial, while making juvenile observations about seizing the day and living while you're alive and so on and so forth. It's cute, but it hardly makes for engaging reading. Like Simon's only interesting point was finding out Blue's identity, the only thing that kept me reading this one was to see how they both die in the end, or if the book was going to pull some unexpected stunt and have them survive after all.
Their universe is pretty shallow, their life lessons learned are pretty cheesy, their day is pretty dull (I mean, not really. Not actually. But pretty dull to read about). It's not bad, but it's really not utilizing the concept for what it could've been. It is, in fact, so blasé about it that it comes across as mildly unrealistic. Humanity has gained the knowledge of predicting death down to the date, yet its only impact on society is a couple of silly capitalist enterprises and unfortunate social media trends? Sounds fake, but okay. The universe feels... unfulfilled, really. The idea's not bad, but the novel uses it to tell the tritest of stories.
I belong in a place where a The Brothers Lionheart is a childhood cornerstone that in the future will probably have to share its space with The Snow-Sister (which is being translating into like fourty languages and is bound to be out in English sooner or later). Both of those are children's books, and both of them deal with the topic of death - and in the case of Lionheart, of waiting for one's own death - with far more heart and insight than They Both Die at the End. I'm not bringing it up to make some kind of point about language or literary culture, but target group and expected content, honestly. Maybe Astrid Lindgren is an unfair comparison to be making for anyone, but I had expectations. They Both Die at the End didn't live up to them.
(also, let me stress that everyone should read The Brothers Lionheart, because it's brilliant. Like, "if you liked Fullmetal Alchemist, you might also enjoy...", and maybe I'll write about that comparison someday. Do yourself a favour and read The Brothers Lionheart rather than They Both Die at the End.)
Plot summary: Picture New York, except in a world where Harry Potter is named "Scorpius Hawthorne" and Draco Malfoy is latino and there exists an agency that knows when your life ends. And when it's your turn, they'll call you up a minute after midnight and tell you that this'll be the day that you die. This is the story about eighteen year old Mateo and Rufus, who find each other on the day they get the call.
Not to spoil stuff, but there's really not a lot to spoil about this. Mateo and Rufus have one day left to live and haven't exactly got their bucket lists in order, and so stroll around the city and try to figure out how to make their last day one that matters. There are many ways to do that, I'm sure, but our heroes limit themselves to the mainly trivial, while making juvenile observations about seizing the day and living while you're alive and so on and so forth. It's cute, but it hardly makes for engaging reading. Like Simon's only interesting point was finding out Blue's identity, the only thing that kept me reading this one was to see how they both die in the end, or if the book was going to pull some unexpected stunt and have them survive after all.
Their universe is pretty shallow, their life lessons learned are pretty cheesy, their day is pretty dull (I mean, not really. Not actually. But pretty dull to read about). It's not bad, but it's really not utilizing the concept for what it could've been. It is, in fact, so blasé about it that it comes across as mildly unrealistic. Humanity has gained the knowledge of predicting death down to the date, yet its only impact on society is a couple of silly capitalist enterprises and unfortunate social media trends? Sounds fake, but okay. The universe feels... unfulfilled, really. The idea's not bad, but the novel uses it to tell the tritest of stories.
I belong in a place where a The Brothers Lionheart is a childhood cornerstone that in the future will probably have to share its space with The Snow-Sister (which is being translating into like fourty languages and is bound to be out in English sooner or later). Both of those are children's books, and both of them deal with the topic of death - and in the case of Lionheart, of waiting for one's own death - with far more heart and insight than They Both Die at the End. I'm not bringing it up to make some kind of point about language or literary culture, but target group and expected content, honestly. Maybe Astrid Lindgren is an unfair comparison to be making for anyone, but I had expectations. They Both Die at the End didn't live up to them.
(also, let me stress that everyone should read The Brothers Lionheart, because it's brilliant. Like, "if you liked Fullmetal Alchemist, you might also enjoy...", and maybe I'll write about that comparison someday. Do yourself a favour and read The Brothers Lionheart rather than They Both Die at the End.)