They Both Die At The End was a shocking, unique experiment in speculative fiction that really caught my attention and worked so well as a standalone novel. So it really need a 550 page prequel that featured constant cameos from future characters? Not... really.

Orion and Valentino shine here, they have such a beautiful connection. But we know early on that one of them is dying at the end of the book and I just feel that maybe there's too many male gay romance books where they're sad and/or dying all the time.

They were also bogged down a frankly ridiculous plot where Valentino offers Orion, who is on the transplant list, his heart and apparently that's just a thing he can do. There's no surprises in this book. What they say will happen, happens and I was just left feeling kinda depressed about it.