Patrick Ness

Conor has been having repeated nightmares, which is maybe not surprising considering his mother is ill and going through cancer treatments. But one night a monster shows up outside his window -- not a monster from his dreams but a monster in the form of a tree that resides nearby outside his home. But this tree can talk, and it wants something from Conor.

This is a quick YA read. It's got a nice blend of both humor and serious subject matter. I think it didn't pack as big of a punch for me as it has for some readers, but it's powerful and an alternate look at grief through the eyes of a child. (In this case, I kept picturing Conor somewhere in the 10-year-old range, but apparently he was supposed to be 13.) I immediately watched the movie adaptation after finishing this book, which paralleled closely with the written version and which I would recommend as well.… (more)

'The Rest of Us Just Live Here' has an excellent title and a rather charming conceit - that various supernatural YA mysteries are happening, but in the background. Thus the chapter titles tell the reader vaguely what's going on with the 'indie kids', in a pastiche of Twilight et al, whilst the actual content of the chapters is totally different. The narrative follows Mikey, his sisters, and his friends, as they prepare to graduate from high school and move on. I thought their anxieties and dilemmas were well portrayed and Mikey himself made a good narrator. The periodic inconveniences resulting from the indie kids versus evil immortals from another dimension palava were also fun.

This was a quick read, and isn't quite as memorable or intellectually intriguing as [b:More Than This|21969786|More Than This|Patrick Ness|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1398164413s/21969786.jpg|22008332], but it's an entertaining and sympathetic portrait of the end of the teen years. Mikey's anxiety and OCD are shown in a sensitive fashion and the romance doesn't feel too forced or excessively sentimental. As a comment on those supernatural YA novels in which only one teenager can possibly save the world, it is a gentle rather than sharp parody. The best summary is perhaps an episode of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' told from the point of view of someone in the same classes as Buffy, who doesn't know about the Hellmouth but can tell that something weird is happening in Sunnydale.… (more)

Some might say that reading two novels about dying teenage boys in one week is somewhat excessive. The two were very different, though! While [b:The Last Leaves Falling|20743633|The Last Leaves Falling|Fox Benwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1409161674s/20743633.jpg|40074501] is a quiet examination of friendship and other bonds, 'More Than This' is more plot driven and toys with being existential. It begins with the death by drowning of Seth, whereupon he wakes up somewhere else with no idea what has happened. Saying more would spoil the plot, which keeps up an impressive degree of tension throughout. The writing styling is very simple, at times verging on perfunctory, but the central conceit is well sustained. Although I foresaw one of the twists, I remained thoroughly invested throughout. The combination of highly readable style and tense plot made this a swift read, yet it was interesting too. Behind the plot machinations dwell some thoughtful questions about perception and ego. I liked this philosophical angle and found it the most memorable thing about the novel. The diversity of the characters was also refreshing.

One thing I wonder when reading Young Adult novels like this, though, is how different (or how similar) they would be if told from the point of view of an adult. Putting things very vaguely to avoid spoilers, in this book an adult narrator would have had a degree of agency and responsibility for the situation that Seth did not have. Exploring the dilemmas created by that could have have been very interesting. I don’t mind teenage narrators, they just sometimes make me ponder how differently the same person might react to the same events ten years later. Teenagers never get the chance to accumulate the wisdom of experience, such as it is.… (more)

Meh.

The central idea, the settings and the first few chapters are not bad at all, what with the eerie ash covering everything and the horse and the looming dream/memories, but I stopped believing the whole thing half-way through. The characters are quite bi-dimensional and they do improbable stuff like having long-winded conversations while running around with their knees up to their ears, the Polish boy's speech patterns make me want to gouge my eyes out, and now that I think about it there is a whole lot too much running around, in general, for my taste.

Also, I wasn't at all impressed by the sneaky metafictional nods to the fact that the narrative is heavily plot-driven. I can nearly hear the author thinking "sh*t, I wrote myself into a tragic ending and now I need the cavalry to save the day at the last minute, AGAIN. Shall I rethink my approach to this novel? Nah, let's get the deus ex machina to do my job instead of me, and then I'll make the boy ONCE AGAIN muse on the possibility that this is all a hallucination made up by his brain, BECAUSE THE CAVALRY KEEPS COMING AT THE LAST MOMENT. So maybe the readers will not notice what I have done here. And let's leave the whole mess unsolved once I get to writing the end, because, who cares. I can't be bothered". Seriously, I kept waiting till the end for it to be a major plot twist and... niet. The ending itself would have been decent, if it were not for all the guns appearing in the first act and never ever being given a chance to shoot at the end of the third.

Finally, a question for whom already read this novel: that Terminator guy, was it really necessary, except for creating plot without having to actually write one? Wouldn't have spared us a lot of "this can't be real, it's all too convenient for me" and "oh look I thought you were dead impaled on a metallic leg and instead here you are bruised but fine after losing half your blood"? Are you satisfied with the explanation that nobody really knows anything and who cares, I love y'all anyway and life is beautiful?

All in all, a very good occasion spoilt because of sheer laziness.… (more)