Written by: Adam Silvera
‘Captivating. From beginning to end.’
Summary
In the world as main-characters Mateo and Rufus know it, there’s an organisation that knows when people are about to die. Mateo gets his Death-Cast in the middle of the night. From that moment, he knows he will only have 24 hours to live, maybe even less… To make sure he will not spend his last day alone, he reaches out to Rufus, a fellow Decker, over an app. Rufus also got the call at night, but is mainly trying to avoid the cops when Mateo sends his text. When they first meet, it feels strange. But doesn’t everything feel strange when you know you will die within a day?
Review
This book really made me think about life. I read this story in English, just because I had the feeling it would be better with this book. And I don’t know how that was in Dutch, but I thought the writing was pretty nicely done. The use of simple words and sentence structure made this book seem a bit shallow, but I kind of liked it, because there would be more room for interpretation.
The story mainly focuses on how people – and society – would cope if something like Death-Cast would really exist. You notice that this has been on the writers mind a lot, because all the questions that might appear, seem to get answered really quicky.
I also like the fact that the story is told from different points of view. By not only giving Rufus and Mateo a voice, but also their friends or even strangers they run into, this story feels really threedimensional. A minor issue for me was that the main characters are not really deepened, and personally, I thought that Rufus especially did not get his fair share of pages. Nevertheless, I found this way of writing very poetic: all those lives that seamlessly blend in with the big storyline of Rufus and Mateo
Conclusion
A beautifully written book that leaves much room for interpretation and own thoughts. The different points of view were the charme of this story. And although you know how it’ll end, you will never see it coming. Recommended for everyone who loves a good standalone.
