Adam Silvera Books in Order

If you want his biggest heartbreaker: They Both Die at the End → The First to Die at the End → The Survivor Wants to Die at the End
If you prefer grounded contemporary drama: More Happy Than Not → History Is All You Left Me
If epic urban fantasy sounds fun: Infinity Son → Infinity Reaper → Infinity Kings
If you're in the mood for a rom-com duet: What If It's Us → Here's to Us

Adam Silvera grew up in the South Bronx in New York City, sharing a small apartment, a close knit family, and whatever books he could get his hands on. He started writing fan fiction around eleven, turning favorite worlds into his own stories. His mother, a Puerto Rican social worker, raised him to pay attention to other people's stories as much as his own.

Instead of taking a traditional college route, he went straight into the book world. He worked at the café and sales floor of a big chain bookstore, then at New York's children's store Books of Wonder, shelving and recommending young adult novels all day. Those shifts, plus classes at a local writing workshop, became his informal education in craft and publishing.

From there he moved behind the scenes, working for a literary development company, helping run a creative writing site for teens, and reviewing children's and young adult books. He has said that by stringing together these jobs, he essentially built his own version of an MFA without ever setting foot in grad school.

All that practice led to his debut novel, More Happy Than Not, a Bronx set story about a queer boy who considers a procedure that can erase his memories. Published in 2015, it reached bestseller lists and was shortlisted for major LGBTQ awards, putting him on the map with readers and critics.

He followed it with History Is All You Left Me, a tightly focused book about grief, OCD, and first love, and They Both Die at the End, a near future story where a company called Death-Cast calls people on the day they will die. Both novels reinforced his knack for pairing big speculative hooks with intimate, everyday feelings. They Both Die at the End later found a second life through BookTok and returned to bestseller lists years after publication, helping pave the way for a television adaptation now in development.

Silvera then stepped fully into fantasy with the Infinity Cycle, beginning with Infinity Son and continuing through Infinity Reaper and Infinity Kings. Set in an alternate New York full of celestials, specters, and vigilante Spell Walkers, the trilogy follows brothers Emil and Brighton Rey as magic, politics, and online fame strain their bond. The books carry over the same interest in identity, loyalty, and the cost of power that runs through his contemporary work.

Along the way he teamed up with fellow YA author Becky Albertalli on the rom com What If It's Us and its sequel Here's to Us. Longtime friends who share an agent, they traded chapters back and forth, each writing from the point of view of one boy in the couple, Arthur and Ben, drawing on years of emails, jokes, and missed connection stories from their own lives.

The Death-Cast universe has kept growing too. In The First to Die at the End he rewinds to the night the service launches and follows Orion and Valentino through New York as the first calls go out. In The Survivor Wants to Die at the End he jumps forward to Paz Dario and Alano Rosa, two boys tangled up in Death-Cast's power, its mistakes, and a violent group called the Death Guard, with another installment already announced for 2026.

Silvera is openly gay and has been candid in essays and interviews about depression, suicidal thoughts, and a later diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Those experiences feed into his fiction in the way his characters talk about therapy, stigma, and the hard work of choosing to stay.

He now writes full time, living in Los Angeles after years in New York, and still describes himself as tall for no reason. What unites his contemporaries, fantasies, and collaborations is a steady promise to queer teens in particular that they deserve big, messy stories where love and hope matter as much as heartbreak.