The First to Die at the End - Adam Silvera

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"It's the night before Death-Cast goes live, and there's one question on everyone's mind: Can Death-Cast actually predict when someone will die, or is it just an elaborate hoax?

Orion Pagan has waited years for someone to tell him that he's going to die. He has a serious heart condition, and he signed up for Death-Cast so he could know what's coming.

Valentino Prince is restarting his life in New York. He has a long and promising future ahead and he only registered for Death-Cast after his twin sister nearly died in a car accident.

Orion and Valentino cross paths in Times Square and immediately feel a deep connection. But when the first round of End Day calls goes out, their lives are changed forever - one of them receives a call, and the other doesn't. 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."

📚📚📚 

Y'all. This review bums me out to write. I LOVED They Both Die at the End, loved it so much. When this book was announced, I was shocked - did not expect this to be a series - but thrilled. I bought it, and then as happens so often it sat on my TBR shelf because there are too many books that I want to read. It sat there until my husband picked it last month as our bedtime book.

We made it a bit over a hundred pages before he decided he didn't want to keep going with it and picked something else. Frankly, it should have been a DNF for both of us, but because of how much I enjoyed the first book, I pushed through solo, clinging to hope that by the end I would come around. I did not.

Truly, not sure this book should exist. The story it tells is meh, a flashback to when Death-Cast first debuted that is not compelling, surprising, or...really anything. And now I'm looking it up and learning that there's a third book coming out, with a fourth planned for next year, and I'm just a little like...why? 

In fairness, perhaps this second book would have been better if it were shorter - it was 576 pages and to say it was repetitive would be an understatement. But also in fairness, this third book is 720 pages. Let me say that again, SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY PAGES. Madness, especially given that the first two books span a period of roughly 24 hours, so I assume this third will follow a similar formula. To quote Lorelai Gilmore, "edit, people." 

I don't know, man. I want to be less jaded, but all I can think is that it's an easy dip into a world that people really loved, so it's being returned to because readers will buy it even if it ends up not being good, purely because they enjoyed that world.

The Duomo is perfection in every form

Ooh, remember back in September when I posted my puzzle review and included my discovery that Ravensburger had a Duomo puzzle? Well, I went on a JOURNEY, y'all, and I discovered that not only do they currently manufactor a 500-piece version, they used to sell a 1000-piece version! Now, the title of that blog post was something about how good 500-piece puzzles are, so obviously I'm a fan. However, if I'm not working within a limited time frame (i.e. on vacation), I prefer a slightly more challenging option, so of course I had to go to Ebay to see if anyone was selling the 1000-piece puzzle.

And they were!

This puzzle, like the Duomo itself, is simply glorious. It was so much fun putting it together, working my way through different sections and then figuring out how they pieced together. 10/10 puzzle.

November Mystery Read

Only two mystery reads left for the year! Last month's was relatively mid - interesting premise but interminably slow pace. Nothing like reading close to 400 pages of basically nothing happening and then getting a "to be continued" for the real action. Especially when the second book in the series doesn't seem to have actually gotten published, so I couldn't even read it if I wanted to. Rude.

But hey, the November book seems promising so far. 

For starters, striking cover with gold sprayed edges. A good sprayed edge is my damn kryptonite. I'm a few chapters in, and it appears this is a multi-perspective book with at least three characters, all of whom are very intriguing. So far it's promising, so hopefully the cover and edges don't end up being the best part!