A review by an_everyday_penguin
The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera

emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I have read every single book by Adam Silvera because I fell in love with They Both Die at the End and then I convinced myself that all his other books were also amazing, mostly because Adam Silvera is very good at writing sad endings. No matter how long it takes to get through the first 75%, I feel bad when I get to the end and it's tragic and that affects my rating. I still love They Both Die, and I read this one because I love the world and I think Death Cast is super interesting. There are a lot of stories to tell in this world, but at some point they'll all end up being the same so I hope he doesn't continue to write more in this world.

Anyway, about this book specifically. I got through the first like 20% really really fast, and then it kind of slowed down and I had to push myself to get through it. Honestly, I didn't really care about the side characters whatsoever and their arcs were kind of boring and dragged on. I get that the side characters were important and you needed them to fully understand the overall plot, but I feel like they could have been severely cut down because I just did not care at all. This happened in They Both Die, but I didn't mind it as much because (if I'm remembering this right) there were only a few chapters and they were really short. They didn't connect to the main plot in any way they were just short little side stories about other people who got a Death Cast call.

I didn't really have a problem with Valentino and Orion. It was kind of love at first sight, but they also had like a day and it's hard to condense an entire, epic relationship into a singular day. So I can forgive that part mostly. Also, was it just me or were the references to Scorpius Hawthorne kind of annoying? I get that it's like this world's version of Harry Potter, but it was brought up so often and I just didn't care. I can't even tell if it's because I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but it felt kind of weird and almost all the mentions could have just not been there and nothing would have changed.

The other thing is that I do think Death Cast's problem was blown out of proportion? Like, the company wasn't perfect on Day 1, I feel like that's to be expected because it's a new company that's becoming a country wide thing immediately, of course there are going to be problems and kinks to work out. Like, I get that if Death Cast makes a mistake it literally affects whether or not someone lives or dies, but I still felt like
shutting down after Day 1 because of a few missed deaths was not a problem, especially when every single one of their predicted deaths were correct
.

I will give points for the plot twist at the end. Knowing Adam, I really thought that
Orion
was going to die, not
Frankie
. I mean, I think that was done well and, like most of Adam's books, the ending was one of the strongest sections of the book.
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