The Rest of Us Just Live Here | Review

The Rest of Us Just Live Here

Author: Patrick Ness

Published: October 6, 2015
(HarperTeen)

Genre: Paranormal, Contemporary, Fantasy

Source: ARC from BookCon

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 worshiped by mountain lions.

{Goodreads}

The Rest of Us Just Live Here isn't your typical YA novel.

This was the first Patrick Ness book that I read. I started More Than This, but I had to return it to the library and didn't finish it in time. Just from reading the first half of More Than This I could tell that Patrick Ness doesn't write the conventional young adult novel. The Rest of Us Just Live Here focuses on the characters from young adult dystopian, fantasy, and paranormal novels that don't have any special abilities and don't get any of the glory. In this book the normal kids are the main characters, and the "chosen ones" are put in the background.

Right at the start of the book you're thrown into the world of Mike. He's a high school senior trying to figure out what it is he wants. His mom is a politician obsessed with campaigning, his dad is an alcoholic, his sister is recovering from an eating disorder, and he's dealing with his own mental illness. 

It took me a couple of chapters to grasp onto what was going on, and to understand what they meant by "indie kids" which turned out to be the heroes/chosen ones.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here deals with issues that are more common with non-heroes. Problems such as mental illness, eating disorders, homosexuality, and others that everyday people face. The only exception to this is that these people live in a world where paranormal things are happening all the time.

The beginning of each chapter is dedicated to keeping up with the indie kids. Even though what's going on with the indie kids is something that any normal person would find extraordinary, the more we connect to Mike, Jared, Mel, and Henna the more the indie kids story seems insignificant.

The characters developed from the second we are introduced to them on the first page until the very end. Did I mention there are diverse characters? Great, well developed diverse characters! I loved how the story unfolded. The characters and the story reveal themselves in a way in which allowed me to connect and made me think. I loved this book, and it makes me want to read all of Patrick Ness' books. There needs to be more young adult books like this.