Adam Silvera



BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Adam Silvera was born on June 7, 1990 in The Bronx in New York City. Silvera started writing at the age of 11 and told Publisher's Weekly that his goal as a child was to have his first book published before his 25th birthday. His first novel, More Happy than Not was published five days before he turned 25.

Before the publication of that novel, Silvera worked in the publishing industry reviewing novels for young adults. Before that, he worked as a barista at Barnes and Noble and worked his way up in the publishing industry. According to his website, he currently lives in Los Angeles and is "tall for no reason." Although Silvera did not attend college, he said in 2015 that his life experience in the publishing industry was a sort of self-created M.F.A.

COMMON THEMES AND ISSUES

Silvera's novels tend to center the stories of queer youth of color, most frequently in urban settings. Silvera has been open about his own issues with depression during his lifetime, and several of the main characters in his novels deal with issues of depression and anxiety. Silvera is openly gay, and his novels often deal with themes of self-identify and acceptance.

Silvera writes about young adults dealing with grief; navigating confusing relationships with friends, love interests, and adults; and building their own idea in the face of pressure to conform to societal expectations. Silvera fictionalizes, often through speculative aspects of his fiction, real-world challenges that queer youth face: conversion therapy; social isolation; and the internet as a site of building identity and forging relationships.

WRITING STYLE

In his first four novels, Silvera's writing is naturalistic and his novels are mostly realistic fiction. In both More Happy Than Not and They Both Die at the End, Silvera employs elements of speculative fiction to create the major conflicts of the stories, but these conceits tend to be the only portions of the novel that are not naturalistic. In More Happy Than Not, Silvera imagines a (not-so-distant) future in which humans are able to have a procedure that will wipe away all of their difficult memories, allowing them to forget moments of grief or adversity. In They Both Die at the End, Silvera imagines a future society in which people are told the day (though not the manner) of their death. Each of Silvera's novel is told from the first-person, limited perspective of the male protagonist.

Silvera's second novel, History is All You Left Me is structured across two timelines. Readers learn in the first few pages that the narrator's boyfriend has died. The subsequent chapter flashes back to the day they met, and the chapters continue in this pattern until the future and past are connected. Silvera's fourth novel, What If It's Us? (co-written with Becky Albertalli) is told from two different viewpoints, with each author writing a character. The novel unfolds from both protagonists' perspectives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

More Happy Than Not (2015)

History Is All You Left Me (2017)

They Both Die at the End (2017)

What If It's Us? (with Becky Albertalli) (2018)

Infinity Son (2020)

CRITICAL RESPONSES

Critical response to Silvera's work has been mainly positive. Reviewers have praised Silvera's depiction of queer youth, mental illness and stigma, and the originality of his plots. Silvera was named a "Flying Start" author by Publisher's Weekly in 2015. In 2016, Silvera's novel More Happy Than Not was granted the Rainbow Project Book List award by the American Library Association. All of his novels has appeared on the New York Times' Best Sellers List. Adaptation rights to two of Silvera's novels, More Happy Than Not and They Both Die at the End, have been purchased for development by HBO. His co-written novel is set to receive a film adaptation as well.

UPCOMING RELEASES & ADAPTATIONS

Silvera's most recent novel, Infinity Reaper is set to be released in 2022 and will be a continuation of Silvera's novel Infinity Son. In 2020, a deluxe version of More Happy Than Not was released that includes a continuation of the main character's story.

Silvera's first novel, More Happy Than Not, is being developed for a television series on HBO MAX.