Silvera

Today I finished the audiobook of History Is All You Left Me (2017) by Adam Silvera. I first came across his writing when I stumbled upon the title They Both Die At The End. It shows the power of a good title, because that made me read and race through the book – and, in fact, I’ve recently read its prequel too. I loved the premise and the inventive world he built. In History Is All You Left Me, though, we are in a very-much-entirely-real world.

Silvera writes young adult books, most (all?) with queer teenagers as their heroes. This book is no different – it is told by Griffin, a 17-year-old whose first love, Theo, has recently died. They were best friends for a long time before realising that they were (a) gay and bi respectively, and (b) very into each other.

Things are even more complicated than that, though, as Theo and Griffin weren’t dating when Theo died – he was, in fact, away at college and dating a guy called Jackson. The book jumps between ‘history’, i.e. the times when Theo was alive and the journey through their relationship, and the present day. In the present day, Griffin is reluctantly getting to know Jackson. He is very protective over his own grief, and doesn’t feel that Jackson has a right to feel the loss as deeply – though gradually his opinion changes.

There are a few twists along the way, and some things that aren’t twists but just aren’t revealed at first – such as the way in which Theo died – so I shan’t mention them yet.

The other major element of the novel to mention is that Griffin has OCD. I don’t know enough about it to comment in depth, but it did seem like he had compulsions rather than obsessions. He hates odd numbers (except seven), and has to be on the left-hand side when he’s walking with someone. But I don’t remember mention of obtrusive thoughts and worries, or fears for what will happen if these compulsions aren’t obeyed. Again, I am far from an expert, and I appreciated that it was part of Griffin’s character rather his whole character, but some pieces felt a bit lightly touched on to me.

So, there are some heavy themes in the book – and I think, for a teenage audience, they are dealt with well. Griffin is deeply immature, so his reactions and responses are unsurprisingly emotionally immature. He struggles to understand that anybody but himself can be affected, and even before Theo’s death he can only really see his own perspective. I wasn’t sure if this was all intended to be an accurate portrayal of a teenager or if Silvera’s audience are likely to be on Griffin’s side in everything. Perhaps both. (The audiobook is read well by Tom Picasso, though it wasn’t always very easy to tell the difference between the main cast of teenage boys.)

I thought it was a good book, but perhaps I am a bit too old to read it. The brilliant concept of They Both Die At The End elevated that YA book into something that would appeal to me. Without that, this one was enjoyable but not a stand-out for me. For teenagers, I suspect it’ll be a much bigger hit.

Apparently I’ve reached the age where I no longer remember what I’ve read. Today’s book was supposed to be The Listerdale Mystery by Agatha Christie – a collection of short stories. I kept thinking the stories were familiar. I realised I’d seen one as a play. And then I thought maybe some of them had been included in other collections. I was 60 pages in when I decided to look it up in my reading journal… and, yes, I read it in 2014. I even wrote a little bit about it. Sigh.

So, I put that one aside (as each story was becoming rather disappointing, once I remembered the outcome) – and chose They Both Die at the End (2017) by Adam Silvera as today’s book. Which was sort of cheating, because I only had about 80 pages left to read – but needs must.

I bought They Both Die at the End after reading a review on Gilt and Dust that made it sound really intriguing, and I recommend heading there for a fuller review than I’m going to be able to give in my #25Booksin25Days haste. The brilliant title caught my attention, and the premise won me over. It’s set in a world that is identical to ours – except people receive a phone call on the day they will die, telling them that they have less than 24 hours to live. It might be a minute, it might be 23 hours and 59 minutes. They don’t know. (Has Silvera been reading Muriel Spark’s Memento Mori, I wonder? I am trying to persuade Rachel to let us compare these two books on ‘Tea or Books?’ – watch this space.)

As the novel opens, the two teenage boy protagonists are just receiving the phone call. One is shy, geeky Mateo, who is already sad because his father is in a coma. The other is Rufus, who grew up in a foster home and is now in a gang (albeit a generally amiable one – except when he’s pulverising his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend, which he is doing when he gets the Death-Cast call). Silvera does a good job of making us like Rufus after this unpromising beginning.

The chapters alternate between Mateo and Rufus, with chapters thrown in from other viewpoints when necessary. They meet through the Last Friend app, and the novel tells of their growing friendship, all while waiting to find out when and how they will die. Like, as Silvera writes in his acknowledgements, a dark game of Jenga.

This is teenage fiction, and I partly read it in preparation for our latest ‘Tea or Books?’ episode on exactly that. So it’s very easy reading, and I expect it would appeal to the heartstrings of early teens far more than to this cynical 33 year old. But I still really enjoyed racing through it – mostly because of the extremely clever concept, which is sustained and explored with great ingenuity. If Silvera has other concepts up his sleeve this impressive, then I’ll probably find myself reading more of ’em.