Book Characters for Gen Z: From Dreamers to Rebels - Sykalo Evgen 2025

The Fragile Theater of Mateo Torrez: How “They Both Die at the End” Exposes the Psychodrama of Being Good

Mateo Torrez is the kind of character you’re supposed to love. He’s tender, sweet, cautious to the point of absurdity—like someone who tiptoes into the ocean and apologizes to every jellyfish on the way in. And in They Both Die at the End, where death isn’t just a theme but the literal premise, Mateo becomes the soft-focus ideal of what we think a “good” person is. Emphasis on think.

But here’s the problem: Mateo is also kind of exhausting. Not because he's poorly written—Adam Silvera actually pulls off something subtle, something insidious even. Mateo isn’t flat. He’s not a saint. What he is, deep down, is scared. And that fear—wrapped in good intentions, lacquered over with politeness—becomes the engine of his psychology. Or maybe the prison.

So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about what it means to perform goodness in a world where everyone knows their expiration date. Let’s talk about repressed desire, fear of confrontation, and the invisible pressure to stay pure in a story that punishes hesitation as much as recklessness. Let’s talk about Mateo, the human equivalent of a locked diary. Let’s talk about the psychology of character.

Mateo isn’t a cinnamon roll. He’s a glass cabinet of self-denial.

If you’ve seen a single “soft boy” aesthetic board on Pinterest or TikTok, you’ve met Mateo already. He fits the mold perfectly: big eyes, quiet voice, library energy. He loves his dad. He visits his best friend and her kid. He spends his Last Day trying not to bother people. It’s painfully wholesome—until you realize it’s not just gentleness, it’s avoidance. A refusal to take up space.

There’s a part early on where Mateo won’t even leave his apartment after getting his Death-Cast call. The world is dangerous, he tells himself. He might get hit by a car. Someone might mug him. The sheer audacity of life, really. So instead he just… stays. Frozen in this tiny apartment like a ceramic figurine, hoping inertia will somehow protect him. It’s an anti-heroic act that doesn’t read like cowardice, not exactly. It reads like emotional claustrophobia.

Here’s the twist: Mateo’s “kindness” is inseparable from his fear. It’s the armor he wears so no one asks what’s underneath. Because what’s underneath? That’s the stuff he’s never said out loud. To anyone. Not even himself.

Mateo’s problem isn’t that he’s going to die. It’s that he hasn’t lived—and knows it.

There’s a line Rufus (his Death Day companion and perfectly calibrated emotional counterweight) throws at him: “You’re hiding from the world and hurting yourself in the process.” And it lands like a slap. Mateo isn’t just unlucky. He’s complicit. He’s a character who has let himself be ghosted by life. And now, in the last 24 hours of his existence, he’s racing against a void of his own making.

What makes this unbearable—and fascinating—is how aware Mateo is of this void. The book’s most intimate scenes aren’t the ones where he dances in a club or kisses someone for the first time. It’s the internal monologues, the way he watches people live and feels this aching envy. Like: I could’ve done that. I could’ve been that. The psychology here isn’t dramatic, it’s forensic. Mateo is quietly dissecting his own wasted potential, even as he tries to reverse it.

And Silvera doesn’t let him off easy. This isn’t some late-stage redemption arc where Mateo suddenly becomes a thrill-seeking daredevil. He never becomes fearless. He just… lets go a little. Enough to sing. Enough to confess. Enough to love. But it’s not catharsis, not really. It’s something messier. More like grief in reverse—mourning the self he never gave himself permission to be.

Let’s talk about queer subtext. No—scratch that. Let’s talk about queer substance.

Mateo is queer, and not in the Instagrammable, rainbow-filter way. He’s queer in that classic, closet-door-cracked-open-and-heart-pounding way. Which is to say: he’s repressed. Softly, devastatingly repressed. He doesn’t say it, not for a long time. Doesn’t act on it, doesn’t even fantasize in a way the reader can comfortably point to and say ah yes, representation! But it’s there. In the silences. In the glances. In the way he notices Rufus’s hands, his voice, the way he moves.

There’s a whole genre of literary psychology that’s basically just “how people lie to themselves about who they want.” Mateo is a masterclass in that. And it hurts. Not because he’s ashamed, necessarily, but because the clock is running out. There’s no time for slow-burn anything. No long coming-out process. No safety net. Just two boys, one day, and the crushing weight of everything unsaid.

So when Mateo finally does act on it—finally kisses Rufus—it’s not triumphant. It’s terrifying. It’s desperate. It’s everything he’s held in his chest for years, all at once. And for me, that kiss is the climax of the novel not because it’s romantic (though it is), but because it’s Mateo breaking his own rules. Finally. Even if just for a second.

Mateo is the character you get when “good” becomes a form of self-erasure.

And this is the part that gets me. Every time. Mateo’s psychology isn’t complex in the Freudian sense. It’s not about childhood trauma or Jungian shadows or whatever theory we’re pulling from the shelf today. It’s about something simpler. Something more modern. Mateo’s entire identity is curated around not hurting anyone. Not making waves. Not being a problem.

Sound familiar?

Because, honestly, how many of us—especially queer kids, especially introverts, especially those socialized to be “nice”—were taught that the safest way to move through the world was to be small? To shrink ourselves into something harmless? Mateo is the personification of that survival instinct. And Silvera gets it. Doesn’t mock it. Doesn’t glorify it either. Just shows it. Lets it unfold.

It’s not a coincidence that Mateo starts the book alone. This brand of moral perfection doesn’t attract intimacy. It repels it. Because when you’re always performing safety, people stop seeing you. They see a mask. They see a good boy. A careful boy. A forgettable one.

Until they don’t.

So what is Mateo’s psychology, really?

It’s the psychology of fear weaponized as virtue. Of love withheld until it's almost too late. Of a body that wants to move and a mind that says no, not yet. It’s the tension between survival and selfhood. Between politeness and passion.

And most importantly—it’s the psychology of hope. Because Mateo does change. Slowly. In fits and starts. He doesn’t become someone else. He just lets himself be more of who he already is. And that, honestly, is the quiet revolution at the heart of this novel.

We don’t need another fearless protagonist. We need Mateo. We need the ones who are scared and still show up. Still hold the hand. Still speak the truth, even if it trembles.

Final thought (if you can call it that):

Mateo Torrez is not an icon. He’s not aspirational. He’s not someone you put on a moodboard. He’s someone you recognize. In yourself. In your friends. In the version of you that still sits quiet at the party, still hesitates before texting first, still thinks maybe it’s better not to say the thing that could change everything.

And maybe that’s why he hurts so much. Because when he finally does say it—when he finally lives—it’s too late.

Or maybe, for him, that’s the point. Maybe one day is enough.

Maybe one day is all it takes to rewrite a life.