December 2, 2015

The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness

Young Adult
Pages: 352 
  • Publisher: Walker Books Ltd 
  • Release Date: August 27, 2015
  • Goodreads / Amazon

What if you aren’t the Chosen One?
The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?
What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again.
Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.
Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.

An interesting blend of awesome and WTF?
This story was a baffling mix between excellent character relationships, tackling mental health, and bizarre satire fantasy. As a realistic fiction lover and psychology student, for me the strong points was how the book talked and dealt with mental health and how the relationships between the characters were so deep and entwined. The fantasy part almost made me give up in the middle, if I am completely honest. It was just so weird to have them talking about real issues one second and then all of a sudden mentioning vampires or zombies or cat Gods. I suppose it would make it fun for some people and the 'danger' factor did help the story some.

The ways Mikey dealt with his mental situation, the help he sought and the descriptions of how he felt were incredible. I would re-read for those parts alone. The sibling bond and the friendship between Mikey and Jared was equally awesome and profoundly heart-warming. So it does pack in the message that with any sort of craziness, the relationships between people make it all worth it.

Overall, an interesting and unusual way of brilliantly addressing mental health and bonds yet including some fun in between. I would recommend for mature teens just because it's not action-packed and the younger crowd may get a bit bored.

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