The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What this book is about:

Mike, his sister Mel and his two other friends Henna (his crush) and Jared (the God of Felines) are not indie kids. What does that mean? Well, Harry, Ron and Hermione would be the indie kids in Hogwards and Neville Longbottom, Lee Jordan or Seamus Finnigan would be the non-indie kids. We all know Harry et al. but not many of us know the others (except maybe for Neville, but you get the point). This group just wants to graduate and live their normal, ordinary lives, while the indie kids get into trouble with the Immortals who, of course, as any villain or paranormal force, want to dominate earth.

Patrick Ness has some very obvious, specific characteristics in his writing style which I found in this book, too, like his other works (e.g. repeating a small sentence two or three times for effect, male protagonist, including a scenes of nudism etc.). But unlike his other novels and books, this one confused me. If you are like me, knowing that Ness can create awesomeness, then you are probably expecting something pretty amazing to happen in this book or at least that this book will speak to you. Well, it might speak to you..but to me it didn’t really. It was kind of a normal, ordinary contemporary novel only with some blending elements of fantasy and paranormal.

At the beginning of each chapter we get a paragraph in which we are informed about what the indie kids are doing. It’s basically a back story of the battle with the Immortals. But then we follow our four characters in their everyday lives. Maybe that was the point? That our ordinary characters will have an ordinary life and we should expect the amazing and awesome thing to happen to them? I don’t know. The story confused me.

What I did really enjoy was first of all the relationship of Mike and Mel and their sister Meredith. Ness also dedicated this book to his sister and in my opinion he created a beautiful relationship among the three siblings. I haven’t found that in many books.
Another thing I enjoyed was the relationship between Jared and Mike and Henna and Mike. The connection between the characters is captured in a very realistic light. It’s not forced and it’s not too much.

(view spoiler)[Another thing I would like to mention is that, as a Psychology student, I think Ness did a very good job portraying Mike at the therapist’s office during their session. On the other hand, I haven’t found many books which present the psychologist in a proper manner. With that I mean that therapists should refrain from speaking in a specific way which is quite hard to capture in a book. This novel didn’t do a good job in this part, in my opinion. The therapist said some very wrong things which could have been avoided by a professional. (hide spoiler)]

Finally, I think Ness tried to pass a message throughout this book that we shouldn’t just things too quickly; not everything ends up being what it initially looks or sounds like. That’s a strong message and I liked the way that Ness presented it.

I could say that I was “expecting” greatness because… it’s Patrick Ness, but I am not disappointed. This book was well-written and constructed with humour but also sadness and with strong messages.

You can buy the book from the Book Depository here:

The Rest of Us Just Live Here

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