Monday 29 February 2016

Book Review | The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

The Rest of Us Just Live HereThe Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the premise of this story, this is not a book about a superhuman teen sweeping in to save the world, this is about the kid in the background (Mikey). This is about the kid that no one notices. I drew comparisons between Buffy and The Scooby Gang - who wouldn't, what with all the talk of the Chosen One and being helpless to save the world again.

Each chapter begins with what is happening to the Chosen Ones, or as Ness calls them, the Indie Kids. Reading this in print format, these short asides would've made more sense. As I listened to this, I couldn't distinguish them from Mikey and his story and for the first few chapters I was wondering what the hell was going on. Luckily I'm not a complete idgit and I figured out what was happening.

I did like Ness' thoughts on mental illness, (Mikey suffers from OCD), and I can't remember where in the book this sentence is, but I just really like thought behind it. There are so many people struggling with mental illness and for the most part, are treated differently because of it. And you can bet that if they had cancer there would be sympathy and understanding instead of people laughing behind your back because you're a weirdo freak. Ness has created wonderfully diverse characters for his book and I enjoy that. I like his writing style and I don't feel like he's written them by numbers or to fill a criteria.

"It's when your emotions become too big. Medications won't get rid of it but it lets you manage it. If you had cancer, diabetes you wouldn't consider taking medication a failing."

Overall, this was a middle of the road read, I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it enough to keep listening. I can't quite put my finger on why it didn't wow me, maybe because the book centers on the everyday, the boring things that we all do, they aren't doing the exciting save the world, end the apocalypse things or maybe The Scooby Gang still has my heart.


View all my reviews

Until next time, happy reading :)

C.

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