They Both Die at the End

Fiction by Adam Silvera.


https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Okay, so this book is set in a world where there's a company called Death Cast who knows what day you're going to die and tells you about it. As, like, a service or something. They call you just after midnight on your day and inform you of your imminent demise, so I guess you can miss out on a good night's sleep as well as dying. Hooray. Oh, and they're never wrong. Whatever you might do to avoid death will be futile; by day's end you will definitely be toast.

This concept is a little far-fetched and creepy, but I was willing to roll with it at first. But it got really difficult.

First of all, the story is set in the present, not the future, so whatever strange forecasting abilities Death Cast had acquired around ten years ago has to be based on current technology. And the company seemed to have no profit motive for all the time and energy they were expending finding out who was dying and then dutifully calling all these folks every day.

Secondly, instead of the old or terminally ill people you might expect them to spend their time calling, Death Cast seemed to predict the deaths of an awful lot of young people. Like, in the city the story is set in, large numbers of unrelated people eighteen to thirty years old are dying on any given day. This seems implausible to me.

And finally, of course.... HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY KNOW THIS?!?!?!

I kept reading, hoping that these mysteries would be explained. I though that if the story could somehow tie all this together by the end, maybe in some grand conspiracy with an at least halfway-plausible interpretation, then the book would be worth it. I just needed some kind of explanation for this book to have any redeeming qualities I could give at least a partial thumbs-up for.

Well, I'm not telling you the end... but here's a hint: