Publishers Weekly Review
| Soon after Rufus Emeterio, 17, and Mateo Torrez, 18, receive midnight phone calls from Death-Cast, a service that notifies those with less than 24 hours to live, the New York City teenagers connect via the Last Friend app and decide to spend their final hours together. Both have been dealt harsh hands even before getting the call: Mateo's mother died giving birth to him and his father's in a coma. Rufus is the only survivor of a car crash that killed his entire family. Over the course of an eventful day, these thoughtful young men speak honestly and movingly about their fate, their anger at its unfairness, and what it means to be alive, until their budding friendship organically turns into something more. Each tells his part of the story in alternating, time-stamped chapters. Other voices-mostly friends from Rufus's foster home and people they encounter-fill out the narrative, revealing the influence both boys have had on those around them. It hardly matters that the title telegraphs the ending; it's still heartbreaking when it arrives. Ages 14-up. Agent: Brooks Sherman, Janklow & Nesbit. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. |
School Library Journal Review
| Gr 9 Up-Everyone who is going to die on a given day gets a call to let them know; not the when, or the how, or the why, but just notification that they will die on that day. Mateo and Rufus each get that call and are facing their last day without a loved one. But there's an app for that. Combining a well-realized alternative present with a lovely romance, Silvera's latest delivers what readers want in a book about dying teens. There's no avoiding the cliches that go along with the idea that an impending end makes life more meaningful, but recasting a Lurlene McDaniel-style doomed teen romance with Latinx queer boys and having the societal changes wink at those clichés softens them and makes a better -storytelling device. The overarching structure of meaningful coincidences making a magical day in New York has its predecessors-Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Nicola Yoon's The Sun Is Also a Star being prime examples-but this title is a deft exploration of that trope. Silvera continues to masterfully integrate diversity, disability, and young queer voices into an appealing story with a lot of heart. VERDICT While most of the elements and themes of this work are not new, they are combined, realized, and diversified expertly in this title. A must-have for YA shelves.-L. Lee Butler, Hart Middle School, Washington, DC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
