The Adam Silvera Collection: Three much-loved hits from the international No.1 bestselling author!

She was over the moon with her books, came in the time frame given.

This is a boxed set of three Adam Silvera novels namely “they both die at the end” (2017), “more happy than not” (2015) and “history is all you left me” (2017). I actually only wanted to read the former but this set was £7.99 at the time (early 2022) and cheaper than buying it as a single volume. “They both die at the end” was originally stand-alone but is now the first part of a series with a prequel “the first to die at the end” due out in October 2022.All three books have LGBTQIA+ dominant casts and are of the YA genre and are broadly romance novels. They are set in South Bronx, New York (though are vague on the geography and could be interpreted as Washington Heights, easily).“They both die at the end” is set in a mildly dystopian alternative reality where you are notified at about 0100h that you are going to die today: reason unspecified, just that you have under 24h left so enjoy them. A world of DeathCast notifying you of your doom, having funerals whilst you’re still alive to enjoy them, free nightclub entry for Deckers (as those about to die are called), arenas that allow you to “travel the world” or “experience thrills” 24/7 for a high price as a Decker and of Last Friends who will spend your final day with a stranger (one of whom became a prolific serial killer!). The story is of two young men of Latino-American background, Mateo who is impossibly shy, closetted and anxious of the world and lives alone with his father plans to hide away for his final 24h until he finds a Last Friend in the form of Rufus, the bombastic, loud, rash, openly bisexual orphan who lives in a group-home with friends who have become his family. The two boys compete one another and it is a very touching story of “what if they just had more time?” and makes you consider “if I had no time left, what would I no longer fear? What risks would I take?”. It is a good story and thought provoking but has some bizarre liberties with the geography of Manhattan (how the boys walk north along a highway towards a named bridge that has no highway south of it I do not know) which is unusual for a South Bronx native. He does invent some locations which is fine but others are real-but-not and I find that quite grating: all real or all fake are both fine, as is real-but-add-a-neighbourhood or street but then the real bits still have to be how they really are. If you know New York, it pulls you back out of the story as it is so jarringly wrong at times. A lot of interesting undeveloped minor characters and mystery around DeathCast and I look forward to the prequel for shedding some light on it!As for the other two books - “more happy than not” is drivel. I could not read it but I tried and got 25% in when I gave up. An enormous cast of characters is introduced very quickly and they serve no real purpose and yet you have to remember all the names of course. A bunch of older teenagers playing the games of 10 year olds makes no real sense - grown adults of 18 talking about having sex one minute and then playing games no self-respecting teenager let alone a grown adult would go near makes no sense at all. I couldn’t buy the relationship between the protagonist and his male lover either. This was one of the author’s early works so I can forgive it being of low quality versus his more recent work but how it has won so many awards I cannot say.“History is all you left me” again I found insincere and trying too hard. At times I felt like I was reading a pastiche of LGBTQIA+ YA novels as the dialogue is almost parodical at times. I think comparing this and the other bad one to a great book like “they both die…” is always going to make them look bad - the latter book has very realistic emotion and is written beautifully and honestly and captures emotion around loss of parents, loss of other loved ones, loss of one’s own childhood prematurely and forced responsibility at a young age etc - all absolutely authentically and naturally and without feeling forced or trite or like a 40-year-old voice coming out of an 18-year-old. The other two books in this set have unrealistic dialogue, un-buyable plots and relationships that don’t feel real. I am excited about the next book in the DeathCast series and I’ve found his LGBTQIA+ YA Fantasy novels “Infinity Son” (2020) and “infinity reaper” (2021) excellent - clearly just two duds in his canon of work in the form of 2/3 of this boxed set!