They Both Die at the End

They Both Die at the End

by

Adam Silvera

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Andrea Donahue Character Analysis

Andrea is a middle-aged woman who works as a herald for Death-Cast. Andrea believes that she’s exceptional at her job because she’s discovered a useful hack to get her through her shifts: she doesn’t think of Deckers as people. To her, they’re already dead, so it’s easier to think of them as just a list of phone calls to get through. Though she thinks her record of 92 phone calls in one shift is something to celebrate, this wound up getting her investigated by HR for rushing. When readers meet her, she contents herself with around 60 phone calls in a three-hour shift. Her numbers, however, only tell part of the story—from the perspective of the people she calls, Andrea is callous, cold, and insensitive. When she calls Mateo, she calls him Timothy (the last person she called), which falsely raises Mateo’s hopes that he’s not going to die today. Her insensitivity even makes Mateo hang up on her, something that’s wildly out of character for him. Andrea desperately hopes to avoid more investigations, as she needs her job. She suffered an accident months before the novel begins, and so she’s temporarily disabled and undergoing intensive physical therapy—which Death-Cast’s generous benefits package covers. She also needs the paycheck to pay her daughter’s school tuition. Through Andrea, the novel paints a nuanced picture of how and why people take seemingly heartless jobs like hers. They, too, are human and need to survive, even if it means doing a job that, to others, looks like selling one’s soul or sacrificing one’s humanity.

Andrea Donahue Quotes in They Both Die at the End

The They Both Die at the End quotes below are all either spoken by Andrea Donahue or refer to Andrea Donahue. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Mortality, Life, and Meaning Theme Icon
).
Mateo, 11:32 a.m. Quotes

“I think we’re already dead, dude. Not everyone, just Deckers. The whole Death-Cast thing seems too fantasy to be true. Knowing when our last day is going down so we can live it right: Straight-up fantasy. The first afterlife kicks off when Death-Cast tells us to live out our day knowing it’s our last; that way we’ll take full advantage of it, thinking we’re still alive. Then we enter the next and final afterlife without any regrets.”

Related Characters: Rufus Emeterio (speaker), Mateo Torrez, Andrea Donahue
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:
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Andrea Donahue Quotes in They Both Die at the End

The They Both Die at the End quotes below are all either spoken by Andrea Donahue or refer to Andrea Donahue. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Mortality, Life, and Meaning Theme Icon
).
Mateo, 11:32 a.m. Quotes

“I think we’re already dead, dude. Not everyone, just Deckers. The whole Death-Cast thing seems too fantasy to be true. Knowing when our last day is going down so we can live it right: Straight-up fantasy. The first afterlife kicks off when Death-Cast tells us to live out our day knowing it’s our last; that way we’ll take full advantage of it, thinking we’re still alive. Then we enter the next and final afterlife without any regrets.”

Related Characters: Rufus Emeterio (speaker), Mateo Torrez, Andrea Donahue
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis: