"No matter when it happens, we all have our endings. No one goes on, but what we leave behind keeps us alive for someone else."

This book... you know how sometimes you just pick a novel up on a whim, just because it sounds interesting and you've been itching to read it for quite some time, and it ends up being something that you really needed to hear in that moment? That's what this did for me - and I flew through it in two sittings!!!

CW: (Pet) death, anxiety, depression

I found this novel a beautiful introspection into the idea of death, and what it means to be faced with your own death so immediately and abruptly. Death-Cast is, to me, equal parts awe-inducing and absolutely fucking terrifying. I cannot IMAGINE ever having that threat hang over me, waiting until midnight every day and not knowing if I'm wishing for the alert to come or for it to stay away. When confronted with your own mortality, what do you do? How do you react, knowing you have less than 24 hours left to be alive? To live?

Silvera does a beautiful job of contemplating this and showing multiple perspectives of it (while I could've done without all the constant interludes and mini-appearances from side characters, they're extremely important in this sense, and truly help the reader see that everyone will cope differently). This book forces you to reckon with the fact that not only is death inevitable, but it can also happen in the blink of an eye, in the split second before one moment and the next.

With the fictional Death-Cast, this universe's humans have a way to try and condense a lifetime into one day - but in reality, nothing can warn or prepare you. This especially hit home, as I suddenly lost my dog, Lucky, back in December of last year. One day he was fine, the next he started rapidly declining. No one saw it coming, nothing could've ever helped me be ready for it, and I'm still grieving, even months later. And since it was the very first time I experienced death this up close, it tilted my world off its axis a little bit and forced me to accept that everything and everyone has an end, as hard as it can be.

Going back to the book, I especially loved Mateo and his quest of finally getting to live after 18 years of only surviving 😭 I found so much of myself in him, and could (quite painfully at that) relate to everything he was thinking and feeling. My own struggles with mental health and my very strong tendency to isolate myself and be solitary because I feel that the world is better off this way have found a home in him, too!! But seeing him come so alive in the short time that we get to know him is really inspiring, too; knowing that his life is about to end gives him the freedom and courage that he needs in order to step off the beaten path, listen to his own desires more and allows him to live his last day as Real Mateo, not Past Mateo. I'M STILL MAD AT HIM FOR NOT HAVING THAT STUPID STOVE FIXED, THOUGH 😤

Last but not least, I want to touch on the ending as well. After seeing how the entire (almost) 24 hours played out, Mateo and Rufus' deaths felt incredibly abrupt, even if the whole book prepares you and constantly tells you that that's exactly what's going to happen. At first, I had that feeling of "Wait... that's IT?" that I don't generally enjoy with books - but after stopping to think about it, I think it's deliberate, and it's another way to drive home the suddenness of death even further. Again, no amount of introspection and contemplation can ever fully make you ready for it, and this book does a wonderful job of pointing that out while also infusing it with a strange beauty, and a sense of hope. it makes you feel like your life doesn't have to be over for you to start truly living it.

I enjoyed this very much - and I'll be keeping it with me forever.