The premise is just
brilliant. In so many YA fantasy books, there are characters at the side-lines who
we never hear from. For every muggle-born wizard there’s a sibling or friend
who didn’t get their Hogwarts letter, and this book is basically about them:
the teenagers in the background of the supernatural, who sometimes get caught
in the crossfire as they attempt to carry on with their lives. The book is
structured cleverly. At the beginning of each chapter, we get a quick summary
of what’s happened in what the other story – the supernatural plot going on in
the background. In ‘Chapter The First, in which the Messenger of the Immortals
arrives…’, what we read is instead a long conversation about love, stomachs,
and schoolwork, broken off when one of the indie kids (ie, the ones who do get
caught up in the magical stuff) runs through their group, followed by a weird
glowing light.
I enjoy the casual
treatment of the supernatural in this book. The central characters simply take
it for granted that every now and then one of the indie kids will get caught up
in something that’ll blow up the high school, that vampires are real, that one
of your best friends might happen to be descended from a god of cats. In this novel,
the extraordinary becomes almost ordinary. This is not only very cleverly done,
but adds some wonderful humour to the book. I love that when indie kid Finn is
chased by a shining light through the woods, Mikey and his friends simply ‘exchange
wtf glances.’
But this book isn’t
just about ordinary teenagers getting caught in the side-lines of supernatural events.
What I found especially interesting in The
Rest of Us Just Live Here is the way Patrick Ness explores issues of mental
health. Mikey’s elder sister Mel is recovering from anorexia, and their father
is an alcoholic. Mikey himself suffers from Obsession Compulsive Disorder. I
was so impressed by how tactfully and subtly Ness deals with these subjects;
his exploration of these issues is never clumsy but always sincere and
effective. Moreover, these issues fitted very well with the premise of the
book: a lot of teenagers and young adults suffer from mental health issues, but
it’s another thing that often gets left out of the fantasy YA genre. The “chosen
ones” never get panic attacks at big moments or get ‘stuck in loops’ like Mikey
does. I feel like even if you’re not interested in the rest of the book,
everybody in the world ought to read chapter 16, in which Mikey visits and
talks to a psychiatrist. It is one of the best pieces of writing about mental
health that I’ve read.
I love Ness’s writing.
When previously reading his book A
Monster Calls I was impressed by his ability to tackle serious and complex
issues while retaining humour and strong realistic characters. I felt the same about The
Rest of Us Just Live Here. The book is told in first person present tense (one
of my favourite perspectives) and is both conversational and reflective in
tone. Mikey is at times an unreliable narrator, so caught up in his own
problems that he isn’t quite aware of those around him; but this really worked.
The tone reminded me quite a lot of John Green’s Paper Towns, and I feel like people who enjoyed that book would
also enjoy The Rest of Us Just Live Here.
Mikey sometimes addresses the reader directly, which I quite like. He invites
us into his world, a world where the supernatural is commonplace, where we have
“indie kids” at our schools too.
The characterisation
is as strong as the premise. Mikey and his sister, and their relationship, is
very well developed, and I just love Jared. Henna is interesting, and Meredith
hilarious. Mikey’s parents also intrigued me. The complex presentation of Mikey’s
mother, torn as she is between her family and her political ambitions, was done
very well. I liked that no one in this book is completely good or bad (another
trope, perhaps, of books featuring a “chosen one”). Mikey isn’t always that
nice. His mum isn’t always completely selfish. Jared isn’t always the perfect
friend, and Nathan isn’t always a conveniently nasty rival.
The book blends
realism and the supernatural in a powerful and poignant way. I love the central
premise, and characters and themes Ness brings out beyond it come together to
form an interesting, engaging and intelligent book. This is one of the most
thought-provoking young adult novels I’ve read.
Greatest
strength: Both the
strength of the central premise, and the way Patrick Ness deals with issues of mental
health.
Greatest
weakness: Sometimes
the background supernatural plotline does feel a little bit silly, but I wonder
if that’s actually the point; and perhaps that’s what happens when you summarise
a complex fantasy plot in just a few lines.
Let’s
finish on a quote:
‘The indie kids, huh? You’ve got them in your school too? … Nice enough, never
mean, but always the ones who end up being the Chosen One when the vampires
come calling or when the alien queen needs the Source of All Light or
something. They’re too cool to ever do anything like go to prom… They’ve always
got some story going on that they’re heroes of. The rest of us just have to
live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part.
Having said that, the
indie kids do die a lot. Which must suck.’
Next week: How to Be Both, Ali Smith
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