The First to Die at the End: TikTok made me buy it! The prequel to THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END

Product Information

In addition to Orion and Valentino, you get the friend, a guy who works at Death-Cast, his coworkers, the sister, the… landlord, and way more for some reason. It's the night before Death-Cast goes live, and there's one question on everyone's mind: Can Death-Cast actually predict death, or is it an elaborate hoax? Orion Pagan has waited years for someone to tell him that he’s going to die, given his serious heart condition. The story goes through several twists and turns and remains clever and surprising despite the title literally saying exactly what’s going to happen.

For a long time, I wanted to rate this story four stars but the last part shattered my heart and mended it back together, full of love for those two boys.I was ready to fall in love with this book, and the end is gut-wrenching and emotional, but beyond that, there's a lot of surplus story that just drags the book out. I did enjoy Orion and Valentino's storyline, but there were a lot of extra characters, some interesting, some not so much. It's difficult to make a book that follows the same format as the first into some new and unique, and I think that's what I was missing. Although this is the prequel, rather than the first in the series, 'The First to die' was my introduction to Adam Silvera and the DeathCast universe.

There are several POVs but the main two are Orion, a New Yorker living with a severe heart condition, wondering everyday if it will be his last. I get it was meant to be a sad book but i signed up for the last day of a couple/boy, not for the random bad lives of random people ALL OVER the book.infact i would not have read this had people given their true opinion on it/how it's actually different than the original. It's like all the tiny connections that we may never realize or understand, but we are all connected in one way or another. The story takes you to the very edge only to pull you back long enough to regroup and then begin all over again. Though neither boy is certain how the day will end, they know they want to spend it together…even if that means their goodbye will be heartbreaking.

Valentino giving Orion his heart was one of the most amazing, moving, emotional, gut-wrenching, bittersweet plot points I have encountered in a book this entire year. Adam Silvera uses his ample skill to force readers to examine how they live life now and how they want to live it.I literally guessed everything that was going to happen and I was still heartbroken and shocked when it actually did. I knew what to expect and the "embrace your life" theme that resonated so much with me in the first book just didn't feel as fresh and meaningful here.