by Adam Silvera
YA Sci-Fi, 2025 by Quill Tree Books, 720 Pages
Note: This is the second book in a series. While the characters don’t overlap, the first book does all the world-building of explaining the Death-Cast program. They should be read in order.
What I Didn’t Like:
- Pay attention to the content warning. This isn’t really a negative, but a note. If you are at all bothered by or triggered by talks of suicide, you’ll need to skip this one.
- Unhealthy relationship. I can’t stress this enough. This book paints this as love (instalove, but love) like it’s something to aspire to. The problem is that this relationship isn’t healthy, it’s toxic. Truly. These two suicidal boys lean on each other too much. It’s scary how unhealthy many of their conversations are but they’re painted in a “cute” light.
- Terrible spot to cut the book. I like endings that leave you thinking but when I say that I mean that I like endings whose themes linger with you. I don’t like when a book raises important questions only to leave you wondering at the end and even teases that you still don’t know. I especially don’t like that when it’s a question that was with most readers back in book 1 and 720 pages of book 2 later … we still don’t know.
What I Did Like:
- Going inside the POV of someone who is so high up in Death-cast is a good choice. It brings a level to this series that I wasn’t expecting. Plus, it provides the extra benefit of answering some of the complex questions readers had after the first one.
- Dealing with suicidal humans in the time of Death-cast is something that curious readers will appreciate exploring. It was difficult to read at times, but it also felt important to the discussion.
- Paz’s struggle with mental health is entirely relatable and written in a good way to make it understandable. The way he learns to focus on his truths and staying grounded without assuming is also a valid coping strategy.
Who Should Read This One:
- Fans of the series who have more questions about Death-cast that weren’t answered previously. You do get more here.
My Rating: 2 Stars
- Look, the information about Death-cast is huge. But the toxic relationship that’s never addressed as such, the unanswered questions, and the fact that you don’t know much more after 700+ pages was problematic for me.
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