SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Infinity Kings
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.adamsilvera.com/
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 398
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born June 7, 1990, in Bronx, NY; son of Persi Rosa (a social worker).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, marketer, and bookseller. Worked as a children’s bookseller, a marketing assistant at literary development company in New York, NY, and as book reviewer of children’s and young-adult novels.
WRITINGS
Contributor to anthologies, including Because You Love to Hate Me: Thirteen Tales of Villainy, edited by Ameriie, Bloomsbury USA Children’s (New York, NY), 2017. Contributor of book reviews to Shelf Awareness.
They Both Die at the End was optioned by HBO in 2019 to be turned into a series, and Netflix bought the rights in 2023; More Happy Than Not was being developed as a series by HBO Max in 2020.
SIDELIGHTS
Young-adult novelist Adam Silvera worked as a bookseller and book reviewer [open new]before gaining critical acclaim for writing star-crossed queer romance with speculative tweaks. He was born in New York City with Puerto Rican heritage. About the role writing has played in helping him reckon with his past and find self-fulfillment, Silvera told Moises Mendez II of Time: “YA has really allowed me to deal with my own trauma, as well as reimagine what my life could have looked like had I been out as a teenager. … I grew up in the South Bronx. It didn’t feel safe to be so openly queer. I didn’t feel fully confident in myself yet. Today I love being queer—it’s one of my favorite things about myself.”[suspend new]
In his first novel, More Happy Than Not, Silvera tells the story of Aaron Soto, a teenager in the Bronx who is struggling with the fact that he is gay. Aaron eventually decides to undergo a new procedure in order to forget. It is not just specific incidents that Aaron most wants to forget. Rather, he wants to forget the fact that he is gay.
“The book was conceived when I was thinking about how sexuality falls all over the place in the nurture versus nature discussions, which never made sense to me because I wouldn’t have chosen to be a gay teenager in the Bronx if given the choice,” Silvera noted in an interview with Paste contributor Eric Smith. Silvera went on to remark that the character of Aaron was created so Silvera could further ponder what it would be like to be a gay teenager growing up in Brooklyn. He also told Smith that he wanted “to see what it would take to drive someone away from their heart’s natural desires and become straight instead of gay.” Silvera has said that the novel is semi-autobiographical in nature and that he rewrote the story several times “until my story became Aaron’s story,” as Silvera noted in an interview with Shelley Diaz in School Library Journal.
In More Happy Than Not, Aaron is an art and comic book aficionado who lives with his brother and mother in a one-bedroom apartment and works at a hospital and a supermarket. As the novel opens, readers learn that Aaron’s father committed suicide in the bathtub. Even though his father was cruel and had psychological issues, Aaron feels guilty about his death. Meanwhile, Aaron struggles with the fact that it is boys and not girls whom he finds attractive. This leads him to try suicide by cutting his wrists, the same way his father killed himself. For a while Aaron seems to be on the mend after his suicide attempt, thanks largely to his group of friends and Gen, who is his girlfriend. However, when Gen goes away for a trip over the summer, Aaron meets the handsome Thomas, who, unlike Aaron’s other friends from the Bronx, is sensitive and unsure of himself.
It turns out, however, that Thomas is not gay and does not have reciprocal feelings for Aaron. When Aaron lets it be known that he has homosexual desires, his friends try to beat the gayness out of him. “There is a borderline gang mentality at work here, where fierce neighborhood loyalty mingles with groupthink to create friends who are as likely to defend as pummel each other, if the code of conduct is challenged,” wrote Booklist contributor Julia Smith. Eventually, Aaron decides to go to the Leteo Institute, a mysterious organization that has created a procedure to remove painful memories. “If he can erase history, he wonders, can he also erase orientation?,” wrote New York Times contributor Ginia Bellafante. Aaron’s hope that the memory erasure procedure will work as some exemplar of conversion therapy proves to be wrong.
More Happy Than Not “serves as a powerful treatise on the complexities of coming out … in a place where such an announcement is not reflexively met with loving embraces from nurturing, progressive adults,” noted New York Times contributor Bellafante. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called More Happy Than Not “a brilliantly conceived page-turner.” A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that some parts of the book are difficult to read because of their grittiness. The reviewer went on to note: “Silvera pulls no punches in this portrait of a boy struggling with who he is.”
Silvera’s works have a substantial core of tragedy, and in many ways could be seen to focus on grief and loss. However, the unhappiness that often fuels Silvera’s stories is deliberately applied and serves as a message to his readers. “What was important to me is, by the end of [More Happy Than Not], that recovering from grief is always going to be difficult,” he told Entertainment Weekly interviewer Nivea Serraro. Yet Silvera also wants the grief to be understood in its proper context. “There will be opportunities for hope and happiness, and happiness will return to your life, but you will always feel that loss if that person really meant that great a deal to you. That’s what I’m interested in putting out there, for teens that may have lost someone in their young lives,” he said in the interview with Serraro.
In his second book, History Is All You Left Me, Silvera tells a story about “the loss of your first love and how you move on beyond that and if you can,” he remarked to M.J. Franklin in an interview on the website Mashable. Griffin, the seventeen-year-old narrator, has lost his first love, Theo, twice: once when the young male couple broke up, and again when Theo drowns in an accident. The emotional devastation Griffin feels is strong; somehow, he had hoped that they would get together again, but with Theo’s death he knows that is impossible. A dual storyline portrays the initial relationship and its breakup from both Griffin and Theo’s perspectives. Griffin’s storyline also reveals how he has struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder and has developed an extremely bitter and negative view of Theo’s boyfriend at the time of his death, Jackson. Readers “will identify with Griffin’s confusion and denial” in response to both the original breakup with Theo and with the young man’s death, noted Claire E. Gross, writing in Horn Book. Throughout the book, “Silvera’s prose is raw and lyrical, a good fit for Griffin’s intensity,” observed Gross.
They Both Die at the End tells another tragic story, this one with a near-future speculative-fiction framework. The title of the book gives little away; from the beginning of the novel, readers know that the two protagonists, seventeen-year-old Rufus Emeterio and eighteen-year-old Mateo Torrez, are going to die. The two teens live in a New York where individuals who are going to die are notified in advance by the mysterious Death-Cast. When someone receives a call from Death-Cast, they know they will die by the next midnight, although they don’t necessarily know how. Mateo and Rufus have both received their calls, and they know they have less than a full day left to them. Both young men have had difficult lives already, so their coming ends do not seem surprising, although they are angry and bitter at the unfairness.
With time running out, they join an online organization called Last Friend, which gives those who have hours left to live the opportunity to engage with others in the same situation. Matteo and Rufus connect through Last Friend, and though they did not know each other beforehand, they “set out to help each other pack the experiences of a lifetime into one last day,” commented Sarah Weber in a BookPage review. With their time growing ever shorter, they transcend a normal friendship in their search for meaning during their last hours. Booklist writer Michael Cart concluded, “Ultimately, it is not death but life that is the focus of this extraordinary and unforgettable novel.”
Set before They Both Die at the End, Silvera’s 2022 novel The First to Die at the End focuses on a different group of teens and offers readers more information about Death-Cast. When the book begins, Death-Cast is being launched and parties to celebrate the event are being held around the world. At the New York party in Times Square, two teenage boys meet. Orion has a heart condition and an overbearing family who tries to protect him. Valentino is an aspiring model who has just moved to New York from Arizona. The two quickly bond at the party. Death-Cast alerts one of the boys that he will die the next day, so Orion and Valentino decide to maximize the time they have left together. The next day, hijacked planes strike the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. In an interview with Amanda Ramirez for Publishers Weekly, Silvera explained why he included the tragic events of 9/11 in the story. He stated: “My first broad experience with death was 9/11, but then two months later, my favorite uncle died in a plane crash headed to the Dominican Republic. It was another example of how people can be here one day and then just completely gone the next without any warning. It was such an emotionally charged, concentrated time for me, so I really loved getting that off my chest and exploring those losses through a young adult lens.”
Reviews of The First to Die at the End were favorable. “Silvera crafts a stunning and thought-provoking narrative that examines difficult existential questions without eschewing hope,” asserted a Publishers Weekly critic. Writing in School Library Journal, Alicia Kalan remarked: “This is subtle exposure to science fiction for readers who aren’t ready to be fully immersed in the genre.” [resume new]A Kirkus Reviews writer affirmed that with The First to Die at the End Silvera “confronts heavy topics … with complexity and care,” cleverly “subverts the trope of punishing gay characters with violent tragedy,” and delivers a “rush of emotion and suspense.”[suspend new]
In 2018 Silvera published What If It’s Us with Becky Albertalli. Dealing with connections and miscommunications, the novel is split between dual narratives. New York native Ben is heartbroken after breaking up with his boyfriend and dreading the fact that they will spend all summer together at summer school. After moving to New York City to intern at his mother’s business from Georgia, Arthur is coming to see the world anew as he embraces his newly “out” status. Throughout the novels, the pair come close to meeting many times but never quite manage it. When they do finally meet up, they struggle with communication issues and unmet expectations.
In an interview in the Little Contemporary Corner, Silvera talked about the importance of cooperation and a positive relationship when working with a coauthor. He shared: “I think this is important for anyone who’s especially interested in co-writing is that you have to be working with someone who you feel comfortable enough to talk through the story with in a way that you’re not gonna be stepping on each other’s toes. This is a book that you are working on together so it’s important to have that respect in the relationship.”
Silvera spoke with Kevyn Tapnio in an interview in Spot about planning out a novel in advance while working with a coauthor. He admitted that “we had a frame but we didn’t allow ourselves to stay glued to it. If the characters were screaming to go to different directions, we embraced it. And even with our outlines and all the various conversations we’ve had with our editors, we would have a bigger idea on how to take the story to greater heights and that has happened for all the book I’ve outlined myself. I’ve outlined books scene by scene from start to finish, and they changed significantly.”
Writing in Voice of Youth Advocates, Courtney Huse Wika claimed that What If It’s Us “is as much a story about the profound nature of friendship as it is about romance. Ben and Arthur are complex characters.” In a review in Horn Book, Shoshana Flax remarked that “the alternating-POV chapters make each protagonist’s concerns believable and sympathetic as we see the story unfold” in this way.
Set two years after What If It’s Us, Here’s to Us finds Ben and Arthur navigating college life, each with new relationships. Ben has been hanging out with Mario Colon, a Latino boy from his creative writing class, while Arthur is dating Broadway-obsessed Mikey McCowan. Arthur is spending the summer in New York, and he and Ben reconnect with one another. They juggle their feelings for each other with their feelings for their new significant others. Ultimately, Ben and Arthur seriously consider rekindling their romantic relationship and the repercussions that that might have. Kalan, writing again in School Library Journal, commented: “Teens will be eager to throw themselves back into this heartwarming world.” Reviewing the volume in Booklist, Jeanne Fredriksen praised the character development, stating: “All characters retain their unique voices and personalities.”
Silvera published Infinity Son, first book in the “Infinity Cycle,” in 2020. Twin brothers Brighton and Emil lament their ordinary status on their eighteenth birthday. But after being attacked by magical potion dealers, Emil finds out that he has the phoenix fire in him. The brothers soon find themselves caught in the middle of a war between the Spell Walkers and the Blood Casters. A Kirkus Reviews contributor declared: “With its raw, complex characters, Silvera’s latest packs his signature high-stakes emotionalism alongside a politically charged premise.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly opined that Silvera’s fans “are likely to be pleased,” and Booklist contributor Ronny Khuri insisted that fans of his novels “will inhale this first installment, which serves the fantasy genre well through a relatable queer, Latinx hero.”
[re-resume new]The third and final “Infinity Cycle” book, Infinity Kings, finds Brighton and Emil turned royal rivals in the battle between Spell Walkers and Blood Casters. The story is told through four first-person narrators: deft and power-hungry influencer Brighton; would-be recluse Emil; Maribelle, caught between romance past and future; and heartsick and scheming political son Ness. Questions of heroism repeatedly arise as subterfuge brings life-or-death danger. A Kirkus Reviews writer reveled in the “complex, action-packed plot,” which unfolds at a “phoenix’s soaring pace,” and appreciated the mostly queer and/or nonwhite cast. Affirming that Silvera “expertly juggles” the four narrative strands, which are often characterized by “sizzling sexual tension,” the reviewer hailed Infinity Kings as a “truly epic tome that satisfyingly stokes the brilliant blaze kindled by its predecessors.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, July 1, 2017, Michael Cart, review of They Both Die at the End, p. 54; November 15, 2019, Ronny Khuri, review of Infinity Son, p. 53; December 1, 2021, Jeanne Fredriksen, review of Here’s to Us, p. 48.
BookPage, September 1, 2017, Sarah Weber, review of They Both Die at the End, p. 1.
Entertainment Weekly, January 17, 2017, Nivea Serraro, “Adam Silvera on History Is All You Left Me: ‘It Feels Like Fanfiction of My Life.’”
Horn Book, January 1, 2017, Claire E. Gross, review of History Is All You Left Me, p. 102; November 1, 2018, Shoshana Flax, review of What If It’s Us, p. 72.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2015, review of More Happy Than Not; May 15, 2017, review of Because You Love to Hate Me: Thirteen Tales of Villainy; June 15, 2017, review of They Both Die at the End; November 1, 2019, review of Infinity Son; August 1, 2022, review of The First to Die at the End; May 1, 2024, review of Infinity Kings.
Publishers Weekly, April 13, 2015, review of More Happy Than Not, p. 83; January 10, 2017, review of They Both Die at the End, p. 91; January 19, 2017, Sue Corbett, “Four Questions for Adam Silvera;” October 28, 2019, review of Infinity Son, p. 101; November 23, 2022, review of The First to Die at the End, p. 84, and Amanda Ramirez, “Adam Silvera on The First to Die at the End,” p. 85.
School Library Journal, May 1, 2015, Ruth Quiroa, review of More Happy Than Not, p. 124; June 1, 2015, Shelley Diaz, “Adam Silvera on More Happy Than Not,” p. 118; December, 2021, Alicia Kalan, review of Here’s to Us, p. 93; January, 2023, Alicia Kalan, review of The First to Die at the End, p. 78.
Seventeen, March 1, 2017, review of History Is All You Left Me, p. 23.
Voice of Youth Advocates, April 1, 2015, Anna Foote, review of More Happy Than Not, p. 83; October 1, 2018, Courtney Huse Wika, review of What If It’s Us, p. 62.
ONLINE
Adam Silvera website, https://www.adamsilvera.com (March 7, 2025).
Better Reading, http://www.betterreading.com/ (April 3, 2017), “Q&A: History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera.”
Booklist, http://www.booklistonline.com/ (May 15, 2015), Julia Smith, review of More Happy Than Not.
Deadline, https://deadline.com/ (January 9, 2023), Nellie Andreeva, article about author.
Gay Times, https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/ (November 21, 2018), Lewis Corner, “Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera on Their Joint Gay Love Story What If It’s Us.”
Little Contemporary Corner, https://thelittlecontemporarycorner.com/ (November 20, 2018), author interview.
Mashable, http://www.mashable.com/ (February 10, 2017), M.J. Franklin, author interview.
New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/ (June 19, 2015), Ginia Bellafante, review of More Happy Than Not.
Paste, http://www.pastemagazine.com/ (June 2, 2015), Eric Smith, “Adam Silvera Weighs Sexual Identity in Memory-Bending Novel More Happy Than Not.”
Pride, https://www.pride.com/ (April 9, 2021), Joe Rodriguez, author interview.
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (October 4, 2022), Amanda Ramirez, author interview.
Seventeen, https://www.seventeen.com/ (January 11, 2023), Samantha Olson, article about author.
Spot, https://www.spot.ph/ (November 10, 2018), Kevyn Tapnio, “What If It’s Us? Authors Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera on How the Universe Had a Hand in Their Collab.”
Time, https://time.com/ (September 27, 2022), Moises Mendez II, “Adam Silvera on the Prequel to His Viral Novel They Both Die at the End—and His Plans for a Third Book in the Series.”
United by Pop, https://www.unitedbypop.com/ (November 10, 2019), Kate Oldfield, “Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera Talk the What If It’s Us Movie And Co-Writing.”
USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/ (July 24, 2021), Mary Cadden, author interview.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adam Silvera
Born June 7, 1990 (age 34)
New York City, U.S.
Genre
Young Adult
LGBT
Years active 2015–present
Notable works
The First to Die at the End
They Both Die at the End
Infinity Son
History Is All You Left Me
What If It's Us (co-authored with Becky Albertalli)
Website
adamsilvera.com
Adam Silvera (born June 7, 1990) is an American author of young adult fiction novels, known for his bestselling novels They Both Die at the End, More Happy Than Not, and History Is All You Left Me.
Life and career
Adam Silvera was born and raised in the South Bronx in New York City.[1][2] His mother, Persi Rosa, is Puerto Rican and a social worker.[3] Silvera started writing when he was around 10 or 11, initially working on fan fiction.[4]
Silvera has worked as a barista, bookseller, and reviewer for Shelf Awareness before becoming a published writer.[5] Silvera is open about his struggles with depression[6] and revealed he has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.[7] He is also open about being gay.[8]
Silvera's first novel, More Happy Than Not, was published in published June 2, 2015 by Soho Teen. The book is a New York Times best seller[9] and was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature.[10] As of 2020, HBO Max was developing More Happy Than Not as a one-hour series, with Drew Comins and Silvera serving as executive producers on the project.[11]
His second novel, History Is All You Left Me, was published January 17, 2017 by Soho Teen. The same year, They Both Die at the End was published by HarperTeen on September 5, 2017. Originally optioned by HBO in 2019 to be developed into a series written by Chris Kelly and executive produced by J.J. Abrams, Adam Silvera has since announced he will be serving as creator, screenwriter, and executive producer for a TV series adaptation of his novel They Both Die at the End.[12][13][14]
Silvera's fourth novel, What If It's Us, was co-authored with Becky Albertalli and published in 2018 by HarperTeen. Movie rights to the book sold to Anonymous Content in 2018, with Brian Yorkey as the screenwriter.[15]
Silvera's Infinity Cycle fantasy series began with Infinity Son, published in 2020.
In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named Silvera among the fifty heroes "leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people".[16][17]
Publications
Novels
Standalone books
More Happy Than Not (SoHo Teen, 2015)
More Happy Ending - a deluxe edition of More Happy Than Not which includes an additional final chapter, a foreword by Angie Thomas and an afterword by Silvera (2020)
History Is All You Left Me (SoHo Teen, 2017)
Death-Cast series
They Both Die at the End (HarperTeen, 2017)
The Father Does Not Die at the End (short story), (2022), published as part of They Both Die at the End, Collector's Edition
The First to Die at the End (2022) (prequel)
The Survivor Wants to Die at the End (2025)[18]
No One Knows Who Dies at the End (2026)
What If It's Us series
What If It's Us, co-authored with Becky Albertalli (HarperTeen, 2018)
Here's To Us, co-authored with Becky Albertalli (HarperTeen/Balzer + Bray, 2021)[19]
The Infinity Cycle series
Infinity Son (2020)
Infinity Reaper (2021)
Infinity Kings (2024)[20]
Short stories
Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy (contributing writer) (Bloomsbury, 2017)
(Don't) Call Me Crazy (contributing writer) (Algonquin, 2018)
Color Outside the Lines (SoHo Teen, 2019)
Adam Silvera is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of They Both Die at the End, The First to Die at the End, More Happy Than Not, History Is All You Left Me, the Infinity Cycle trilogy, and the What If It's Us duology with Becky Albertalli. His novels have received many starred reviews. He previously worked in children’s publishing and bookselling. He was born and raised in the Bronx and now lives in Los Angeles. He is tall for no reason.
Adam Silvera on the Prequel to His Viral Novel They Both Die at the End—And His Plans for a Third Book in the Series
10 minute read
The First To Die At The End by Adam Silvera
By Moises Mendez IISeptember 27, 2022 4:44 PM EDT
Adam Silvera put it right there in the title: They Both Die at the End. But readers still didn’t believe him. “People thought I was going to do a fake-out,” the author says. “None of us is going to be the exception to death.”
Silvera’s heartbreaking YA novel follows teens Mateo and Rufus, who were both just notified by Death-Cast—a service that alerts subscribers when they are going to die within 24 hours—that their time has come. The story follows their romantic adventures together as they try to make the most of their last day. The novel was published in 2017, but it saw an unexpected surge in sales three years later thanks to BookTok, the subsection of TikTok that has proven powerful when it comes to launching best sellers. In 2020, when the world was on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, bookworms on the platform helped catapult Silvera’s novel to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. Now, building on that momentum, the author will publish a prequel, The First to Die at the End, on Oct. 4.
Silvera, 32, says he feels “indebted” to the BookTok community: “They’ve allowed me to return to the Death-Cast universe, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.” The First to Die at the End takes place on the day that Death-Cast first launches and offers another queer love story, this time centered around protagonists Orion Pagan and Valentino Prince, who meet in Times Square. The two are instantly drawn to one another and explore the city together as the threat of death looms over them both—Valentino has received the call, while Orion is living with a heart condition that could end his life at any moment. The new book dives deeper into the lore of Death-Cast as readers hear about it from the perspective of the man who created the service, as well as his wife. Silvera wrote the book so that a new reader could start with the prequel and then read the original novel. “You want things to be in conversation with the other book but not fully reliant upon it,” he says. “There’s no real sequence to read these books.”
For the author, whose path to writing started with a barista job at Barnes & Noble, exploring teen love stories is a way of processing his own past. “YA has really allowed me to deal with my own trauma, as well as reimagine what my life could have looked like had I been out as a teenager,” he says. “I grew up in the South Bronx. It didn’t feel safe to be so openly queer. I didn’t feel fully confident in myself yet. Today I love being queer—it’s one of my favorite things about myself.”
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Read More: The 100 Best YA Books of All Time
Silvera spoke to TIME about The First to Die at the End, plans for another book in the series, and whether he would subscribe to Death-Cast if given the choice.
TIME: When did you decide to write a prequel, and why?
Adam Silvera: I’ve always loved the Death-Cast universe, and I always wanted to write more books in it. My original editor wisely cautioned me against doing too many Death-Cast novels because we didn’t want to dilute the beauty of Mateo and Rufus’ love story. Something that I have said from the beginning with these novels is that I will never write the same book over and over. When I presented two ideas to my publisher, my agent, and my editor, they all thought the prequel idea was intriguing.
What can you tell me about future plans for the series?
There’s a third Death-Cast novel, and the narrators are the two young boys we are introduced to in The First to Die at the End, Paz Dario and Alano Rosa. It’s going to be out in 2024, and it’s set 10 years after the prequel, in 2020, with no COVID. I’m going to be talking about how Death-Cast helped prevent COVID from becoming what it became in our world, because it’s an alternate reality.
We’re going to learn even more intimate details about Death-Cast, but also the highs and lows of being the son of the Death-Cast creator. Alano has not had an easy life because Death-Cast is a secret, and people want to know how it works. That presents a lot of challenges for him and a lot of blame befalls him unfairly because Death-Cast can be viewed by some as the reason people are dying.
In reading both books, I interpreted Death-Cast as sort of a villain character, but I feel like in The First to Die at the End, you’re reshaping that narrative. Can you tell me more about that?
That’s such an interesting observation for me, because I’ve never viewed Death-Cast as villainous. They are providing a service for those who want to know and brace themselves for an untimely death. I get asked all the time if I would subscribe to Death-Cast, and the answer is yes.
How do you go about deciding what you’re going to explain in your novels and what you won’t? In The First to Die at the End, readers are left with a cliff-hanger about how Death-Cast actually works.
I have the answer, and I’ve told a couple of people, should something happen to me.
But I think it just becomes a bigger distraction from the story I want you to pay attention to, which are the love stories within these novels. In the book, the creator of Death-Cast—who I basically use as a vessel to express my feelings about readers asking me about Death-Cast—says that once that door opens, there’s no closing it. I 100% agree, because all that does is invite you to poke holes in it. From my comprehension of Death-Cast right now, it just works. We regularly go through life not knowing how something works and just accept that it does.
Something that I appreciated in both books is how the stories focus primarily on the two main characters, and not so much on the trials and tribulations of being queer.
We are starting to have this narrative that we need to retire the coming out story, because we’re in a generation where there’s a lot more understanding and acceptance. In 2010, that was not really the case, but that’s not really the case either today. There are so many teenagers—and I know this because they DM me or I meet them at book signings—who are scared to come out today because of parents, guardians, friends, teachers, or classmates.
In this alternate reality, there is a Harry Potter-type book franchise and the author is a queer trans woman—very interesting, given all that’s gone on with J.K. Rowling.
I’m very vocal about my deep disappointment in J.K. Rowling and all her anti-trans rhetoric. I wanted my readers, specifically trans readers, to know that this is a safe space. There is no anti-trans nonsense within my novels, and there never will be.
Read More: Trans Women Are Women. It’s Time to Move Past Harmful Debate
Between the four main characters in the series so far—Mateo, Rufus, Orion, and Valentino—who do you identify with most?
Orion. Orion wasn’t even supposed to be a narrator in this novel; his best friend Dalma was, but it just wasn’t coming together. I thought, “Let me write something that just feels closer to me,” and Orion was born. It was as if the book would never have existed without him in the first place.
Orion’s a writer. He’s from the Bronx. He’s Puerto Rican. He curses so f-cking much, which is me, but he also has a really big heart. There are so many parts about his identity that are identical to my own, except I just wasn’t out yet. So I got to play pretend a little bit and see what it could have looked like, had I been out in 2010. He lost his parents during 9/11, and even though I didn’t lose my parents that day, how he describes that day is 90 to 95% identical to what I experienced.
Sept. 11 is such a focal point in the book. Can you say more about your relationship to that day?
My mom was in Manhattan that day. She normally worked in the Bronx, right across from where we grew up, but she had a meeting. She had to walk the bridge back to come pick up my brother and me from school. We were creating all these plans in case we got separated, because I was 11 years old. It was so terrifying to fear death like that.
Two months later, my favorite uncle died in a plane crash on the way to the Dominican Republic, Flight 587. Within that two-month period between 9/11 and losing my uncle, I came to this understanding that people can be here and then just suddenly be gone without any warning. And that’s how Death-Cast was born. My death anxiety basically created this service where they can tell you when you’re about to die. It’s not so you can prevent it, because these books are not about that. It’s about just giving you that heads up so you can get your affairs in order and so things aren’t left unsaid.
They Both Die at the End is being adapted for television. What’s your involvement with the show?
I was originally attached and involved as the creator and executive producer, but as of very recently, I have stepped away from the show.
How do you feel about that?
I’m processing. I love the universe so much. We will see what happens, but at this stage, it’s just in development. There are no scripts. There is no cast. There’s nothing in production. There’s no streaming home for it. There are some really brilliant producers who are still attached to the project, so there is always hope.
Speaking of hope, one of the things you do well in these novels is suspend hope throughout the entire story. Why is there that hope, if we know what’s going to happen in the end?
I’m telling you the ending from the title: They Both Die at the End. It was a really interesting exercise for people because they didn’t believe me, and I’m like, that’s on you. People thought I was going to do a fake-out where they’ll be the exception to the rule. None of us is going to be the exception to death. As much as I love the boys in these books and want them to live, they’re not going to develop immortality for the sake of it.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Silvera, Adam INFINITY KINGS Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins (Teen None) $19.99 3, 12 ISBN: 9780062882363
The war between Spell Walkers and Blood Casters reaches its thrilling conclusion as election day looms.
Tensions between twins-turned-enemies Brighton and Emil--the so-called Infinity Kings--are at an all-time high, and each is following his own ideas of what it means to be a hero. Whereas Brighton wants his powers (and influencer fame) to grow, Emil wants to bind his powers forever and restart his life. Meanwhile, Maribelle seeks a way to revive her late boyfriend while she's simultaneously developing confusing feelings for Halo Knight Tala. Caught in his own love triangle and vying for Emil's favor, Ness plots revenge on his political mastermind father. In each of the major plot strands, plans quickly go up in smoke with surprises and deception at every turn--and an astonishingly high body count. Will their alternate New York ever really see peace? This trilogy closer lightly recaps the previous entries while propelling the complex, action-packed plot at a phoenix's soaring pace. Emotions run high throughout, including sizzling sexual tension that arises even in the most unexpected moments. Although the book is heavy on explanation, Silvera expertly juggles the four alternating first-person narrators while seamlessly tying up all the loose ends. The moral ambiguity of the mostly brown-skinned and/or queer cast makes for fascinating character development, and the magical parallels to contemporary political situations are chilling.
A truly epic tome that satisfyingly stokes the brilliant blaze kindled by its predecessors. (the world of Gleamcraft, dramatis personae) (Fantasy. 12-adult)
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"Silvera, Adam: INFINITY KINGS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A791876768/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c8507d1d. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
Silvera, Adam THE FIRST TO DIE AT THE END Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins (Teen None) $17.99 10, 4 ISBN: 978-0-06-324080-3
Crowds gather across the United States for the launch of Death-Cast, a company that promises to change the world by predicting the deaths of everyone who subscribes in this prequel to They Both Die at the End (2017).
Orion Pagan, an aspiring author with a heart condition, hopes his phone won't ring at midnight, but he knows Death-Cast's call is coming soon. Unlike Orion, Valentino Prince, a model on the verge of his national debut, has no reason to anticipate Death-Cast's call and isn't sure if he believes the company's claims. By coincidence or fate, their lives collide at a party in Times Square, and a single, historic phone call alters the courses of their futures. This heart-pounding story follows the final day of the first Decker, or person who is going to die, and the national chaos of Death-Cast's premiere. Silvera crafts a web of intricately interconnected character perspectives and conflicts around Orion and Valentino. Apart from Valentino and his twin sister, who are presumed White, most of the characters are Latine, including White-passing Orion, whose family is Puerto Rican. The story confronts heavy topics like grief, abuse, and religious faith with complexity and care. Despite the presumed inevitability of a fatal end to the central romance between Orion and Valentino, Silvera subverts the trope of punishing gay characters with violent tragedy. Familiarity with the original book provides additional context and depth but isn't essential to understanding the plot.
A rush of emotion and suspense. (Speculative fiction. 13-18)
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"Silvera, Adam: THE FIRST TO DIE AT THE END." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2022. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A711906551/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=c933dc22. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
You've said of your books that you often find yourself wrestling with mortality, and you've also mentioned previously that you tend to use the process of writing as an additive form of therapy. Can you speak more about this process?
It's so funny, because I really could not afford therapy years ago, but found myself often wrestling with a lot of personal matters through my writing. I would say my first three novels--More Happy Than Not, History Is All You Left Me, and They Both Die at the End--they really are the most "me" novels that I've created, and because they're dealing with things that are either big fears of mine or big traumas that I needed to process in a different way, writing these novels allowed me to see things from different perspectives outside of my own.
When you're writing a novel, you can't only consider the perspective of your primary narrator. You have to think about things from the headspaces of your secondary characters, as well. Doing so has allowed me to grant forgiveness to people in my life, and to myself, and I've really cherished that process so much. I always highly recommend it, because just like therapy, you don't work through everything in a single session. It requires a lot of work and it takes a lot of time, and that exact thing can be said for writing.
When I embark on that journey, I really do come out a little more healed at the end of one of these stories that I've created.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 PWxyz, LLC
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Ramirez, Amanda. "ADAM S1LVERA ON THE FIRST TO DIE AT THE END." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 49, 23 Nov. 2022, p. 85. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A728493933/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bd87e165. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
The First to Die at the End
Adam Silvera. Quill Tree, $19.99 (560p) ISBN 978-0-0632-4080-3
On the eve of the historic launch of a death-predicting corporation, two queer teens make the most of the time they have left together in Silvera's heart-wrenching standalone prequel to They Both Die at the End. Because of his heart condition, 18-year-old Puerto Rican writer Orion Pagan has spent most of his life waiting to die, terrified of not knowing when it'll happen. With the appearance of Death-Cast, a corporation that claims it can predict people's death dates, he takes comfort in the fact that "at least I'll know when it's game over." Meanwhile, white-presenting 19-year-old model Valentino Prince believes his life is only getting started. Having just arrived in N.Y.C. after moving out of his strict religious parents' house in Arizona, Valentino, eager to discover the city, ventures into Times Square, where Death-Cast prepares ro celebrate its launch. The boys meet and strike up an immediare flirtation amid the celebrations, but when midnight strikes, and Death-Cast informs one of them that he will die the next day, they resolve to spend a lifetime in 24 hours. Fans of the first book will enjoy pointing out familiar details while absorbing Death-Cast's riveting lore. Through the boys' vulnerable alternating perspectives, interspersed with vignettes that explore varied supporting characters' relationships with death, Silvera crafrs a stunning and thought-provoking narrative that examines difficult existential questions without eschewing hope. Ages 13-up.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"The First to Die at the End." Publishers Weekly, vol. 269, no. 49, 23 Nov. 2022, p. 84. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A728493930/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ce7ee698. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.