

After the assault on Peck, Rufus is on the run from the police and cannot spend his End Day with his best friends, Tagoe Hayes and Malcolm Anthony. Through Last Friend, Mateo meets Rufus, another Decker who got the call from Death-Cast while he was in the middle of beating up Patrick “Peck” Gavin, the current boyfriend of Rufus’ ex-girlfriend, Aimee Dubois. He joins the app Last Friend, which pairs Deckers with other individuals-either Deckers or non-Deckers-who are looking for companionship on their End Day. At first, Mateo wants to spend the day tucked away in his bedroom, but because it is his last day alive, he pushes himself to try and make the most of his final 24 hours. Mateo receives the call from Death-Cast a little after midnight on September 5, 2017. The novel is a New York Times bestseller, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Kirkus Best Book of the Year, and Booklist Editors’ Choice of 2017, among other praise. The novel deals with themes of mortality and the inevitability of death, the importance of friendship, and the experiences of LGBT teens of color. The book focuses on the End Day shared by two Decker teenagers, Mateo and Rufus, who meet through Last Friend. A person’s final day alive is referred to as their End Day, and people experiencing their End Day are called “Deckers.” Society is different due to the existence of the Decker population: There are blogs that follow Deckers on their End Days, bars that serve Deckers looking to party before they die, and an app called Last Friend that matches Deckers with another person so they do not have to spend their final day alone.


In the world of the novel, Death-Cast notifies citizens on the day they will die.
