What Living Fully Really Means

They both die at the end by Adam Silvera

Just wow. What a brilliant, compulsively readable book.

This not a romance. It’s a story about how two young men, when faced with their imminent demise, help each other to grow into better people (all in the course of 24 hours). It absolutely had to be called that because I was 100% secretly hoping for them not to die (even as it was repeatedly reinforced that Death-cast were never wrong) and I bawled like a baby when the first boy died (I’m not telling you who).

The book works through real language and people and extensive world building.

The dialogue flows naturally, without excessive internal explanation, just people subconsciously reading and understanding each other. I especially loved when they both begin to tip-toe around the subject of their attraction. How, they are talking around the subject, and understanding what the other wants to say or is trying to ask, but each giving the other space to get there at his own pace. It felt incredibly real to me. Especially after so many genre romances where the authors act like humans are incapable of subtext. Thank you Silvera, this was so much better.

I love that one boy knew full well what his problem was and just needed the opportunity to step into his better self. While the other boy was in deep denial, so it’s in retrospect that we see his development, even though it was right there in that opening scene. Chefs kiss.

The author really dives into the premise and proceeds to examine it from every angle. What would the world be like if there was a way to know which day every person would die. What businesses would spring up. How would it affect people emotionally in the run-up to death and at the moment of death (I’m thinking of how Rufus’ family died). The good and the ugly, and the sceptics. The book isn’t just an ode to living each day fully. It explores how there are so many ways to live fully. That even choosing not to die today is living, taking control almost. God I’m getting upset again typing this.

It’s beautiful and extraordinary and I want to read it again, but I don’t think I can withstand reading it again, not now at least. So, glad I have a copy to keep.

Another for the favourite shelf.