The First to Die at the End

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-31

Part 3, Chapters 32-62

Part 3, Chapters 63-91

Part 4, Chapters 92-105

Part 5, Chapters 107-115

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Approaching Death by Living to the Fullest

As a prequel, The First to Die at the End is concerned with the advent of Death-Cast, and so the theme of approaching death by living to the fullest sets out why Death-Cast becomes so popular within the series’ universe. To do so, Adam Silvera tells the story of a boy who always believed that he was going to die and who can take some comfort in knowing when it’s coming and another boy whose life is just beginning before it quickly becomes apparent that he will not live to see his future. Together, they come to understand what it means to “live” out of a fear of dying, though the book also makes an existential argument that extends beyond simply Death-Cast’s premise of giving someone a definitive “End Day.” Rather, as we learn from Valentino and Orion, the book imparts a lesson to not “wait for your End Day to live like we did together” (549).

As a company, Death-Cast looms large in the reader’s imagination as they progress through the text. Each section is introduced by an epigraph from Death-Cast’s website intended to impart its “mission.” For example, the epigraph to Part 1 reads, “I urge you to not concern yourselves with how we know about the deaths and instead focus on how you’ll live your life” (1). Beginning with this quote from Joaquin Rosa makes explicit the connection between Death-Cast and its users’ lives. Death and life clearly go together in this novel, and Valentino and Orion quickly discover that death does not need to prompt life. Instead, their story, mired in an inevitable death, inspires and affects those around them, such as Dr. Emeterio, her husband and children, and Rolando and Gloria.

Orion has long been afraid of dying, and he has always been inhibited by a fear that he is going to die. Death-Cast represents a solution to this, and, even more, the novel allows Orion to move beyond that fear, to become a “novel. […] Better yet, [he’s] a work in progress” (549). He gets to have a full story, which he never thought that he would have. He gets this because he allows himself to live as a result of pushing Valentino to live on his last day. He steps outside of his comfort zone in going to Ground Zero and experiencing his first relationship with another boy.

Likewise, Valentino grows to accept that it is better to live than to spend his End Day worrying about dying. When he realizes that he will not be able to do his first photo shoot as a model, he is heartbroken, thinking that nothing is going right on his End Day. However, by experiencing the city with Orion, he is able to fulfill many of the firsts that he wanted to have in New York. This symbolizes how one should try to soak in everything that they can, leading him to encourage Orion to have full days before his End Day, ones in which he feels like he is truly living.

Ultimately, this theme contends with the relationship between life and death and works through the novel’s characters to show that death should not be the impetus for living. Death-Cast serves a narrative function in structuring this universe so that death is embodied in the concept of the Deckers, and Silvera pushes readers to think about whether or not they would sign up, essentially asking that if everyone was able to live their lives to the fullest every day, would a service like Death-Cast be necessary?

Being Seen for All That You Are

At the start of the novel, Orion is shy and barely pushes himself to talk to Valentino. By its end, he is actively dancing on a subway train just to fulfill Valentino’s wish to see a subway dance performance, willingly putting himself out there in a way that exemplifies how he cares for others. The First To Die at the End tells a coming-of-age story in which Orion and Valentino both become visible and embody feelings of being seen and empowered as a result of their friendship and their relationships with those around them.

Valentino’s choice to move to New York City embodies his desire to be seen and respected for all he is, as his parents pretend he is invisible when he is at home. When he and Orion interact at first, it is because Orion sees him: He picks the other boy out of the crowd and is drawn to him. Orion and Valentino’s relationship is one of seeing and helping each other become more visible as the novel progresses. Orion does this by photographing Valentino as he progresses through his different firsts. Orion convinces them to go through the city when he says, “But just because the whole damn world won’t see these pictures doesn’t mean the people in your world won’t” (292). As a model, Valentino wishes to be seen and heard, and he achieves his dream of being able to be open about who he is, feeling on the makeshift subway runway that “[he’s] getting seen by real people, people who will have seen [him] strut in a way that [he] wasn’t able to do in [his] own home” (398). He feels recognized and valued.

Likewise, Orion dreams of telling his story, which is why he is drawn to sharing his Death-Cast story at the start of the novel. His clock is ticking, and his desire to tell his reason for signing up for Death-Cast is rooted in his desire to be seen and recognized. It symbolizes a future stage that he fears he may never reach. He values the way that Valentino saw him and made him act more extroverted and confident in who he is, which is further embodied in the way that he holds the pictures of them to his chest at the end of the novel, as they are visual representations of the boy that he loved and who changed his life so much.

For other characters, Valentino and Orion symbolize being seen and valued. When they run into Mateo Torrez in Times Square, Mateo recognizes that “they just wanted a picture taken together, and when Mateo saw them kissing, he felt something unlock within him” (437). It makes Mateo recognize something within himself—to see something within—and his father helps him to further understand that love means recognizing how you feel and acting on those feelings. Teo says, “Don’t be scared if you find yourself loving someone you’re not expecting to. If it’s right, it’s right” (437-38). He wants his son to feel valued and appreciated, and Mateo is able to put himself out there to make new friends as a result of seeing Valentino and Orion, showing that authenticity can have a lasting effect.

Feelings of Security for Family and Friends

Throughout The First To Die at the End, Orion and Valentino worry about their family and friends and the effects of their decisions on those family and friends. They must balance this with their own wants and desires, especially on Valentino’s End Day. It is representative of a larger self-awareness in which they recognize that their actions affect others, and those effects can take a toll on someone as a person.

Orion embodies this theme in his desire to sign up for Death-Cast. He emphasizes to Valentino that “no matter how much you’re living, Valentino, it’s still going to be haunting if you don’t get the chance to say goodbye to someone you love. Especially if given the chance” (62). He has lived through deaths in which his parents could not say goodbye to him, and he has lived with the fact that he, too, could pass away at any moment, leaving his family and friends to mourn him without a proper goodbye. He wants them to be able to get the closure that he never did.

Dalma is particularly conscious of this, and it causes a brief rift between her and Orion when Orion decides to convince Valentino to leave the hospital. His illness has had a lasting effect on her, making her worry constantly about whether or not he’s having a heart attack and causing her grades to suffer whenever he’s in the hospital. It is a distinct hardship for her, and she thinks that “[h]e doesn’t know that she doesn’t know how she’ll live if he dies” (349). While Orion himself certainly has to bear the burden of his medical issues, his family too has an emotional weight to carry, and Dalma sees Valentino’s willingness to donate his heart to Orion as a way to alleviate that pain both for herself and for Orio.

Additionally, Valentino and Scarlett each worry about one another constantly. Valentino is horrified that his sister will be alone without him once he dies, and he spends part of his End Day trying to make sure that she is taken care of, transferring money into their account, setting up the apartment, and putting together photos so that her arrival to New York is not as lonely as could be and to ease some of the pain of his death. He wants her to feel secure, and leaving Scarlett alone weighs heavily on Valentino. While he is not ultimately able to provide her with some security in New York, it is Dalma who ensures that Scarlett finds family by promising her that the Youngs will always support her if needed.