I think I've just read too many books that are similar to this. Everything was a bit predictable, but it was a fun way to spend a few hours.

I finished They Both Die at the End last night, and initially, I felt really satisfied. The book hits a lot of strong emotional notes (grief, love, the fear of loss) and I think that’s part of why it lands so well initially. Of course we don’t want to die. Of course we crave connection and love, especially in our darkest moments. Of course we should want to savor every moment as if it could be our last. But those are also pretty fundamental, almost obvious ideas. I’m not sure the book says anything new about them, it just presents them in a high-stakes context and lets the emotion carry the weight. That said, I did enjoy the characters. Mateo especially felt tender and real to me, his arc from fear to action was genuinely touching. That little glimpse into what Mateo’s future could have looked like, using Lydia and Penny as a kind of parallel life, was really sweet. Rufus’s life, in contrast, felt heavier, more brushes with violence, more trauma. Both boys were trying to outrun their futures by embracing a fantasy, quite literally in the VR scenes. I loved watching their relationship evolve, though I couldn’t help wondering: was it a trauma bond? Would they have connected like this in the real world? If they hadn’t gotten the Deathcast call, they wouldn’t have met. No love story. No fire. No grief spiral It’s all so tightly wound together that the whole premise starts to feel a bit contrived. But that brings me to Deathcast itself. Without the call, most characters wouldn’t be where they are or doing what they’re doing. It brings up interesting questions about fate, free will, and whether destiny is something we create by believing in it. But I’m not sure the book fully wrestles with those questions in a satisfying way. So overall, I liked it, but I can't help but wonder if it's just not as deep as it appears at first glance.

I had a lot of frustrations with this book. The pacing felt odd, oftentimes too slow, then too fast. The characters' young age was so evident in many immature and illogical decisions. Especially towards the end, I wanted to yell at them all to just calm down and think for a moment before acting. That being said, it hit all the notes I've come to expect from a good fantasy book, and the last 25% or so were fun to speed through to see what would happen. While a bit predictable, it still felt pretty good. The author's note was amazing, and the underlying message in the book was important. It added extra context and emotion to the story that's hard to separate from the story itself. Additionally, I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator was excellent. Her emotion and voice acting added a lot to the story.