The Rest of Us Just Live Here | Patrick Ness | Review

The Rest of Us Just Live Here | Patrick Ness | Review

• Friday, 6 November 2015

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.  

*********

Mikey is mostly your standard teenager - dealing with school, girls, family, OCD - but what he's not is the chosen one. Mikey lives in an earth which is the same as ours, except that previously there have been all sorts of crazy supernatural going-ons ... and the characters know that something like an apocalypse, or a zombie attack is a actually something that is likely to happen. The Rest of Us Just Live Here is a fascinating angle of a story we don't really read. Mikey and his crazy family, and his school life and friendships are the characters in stories we never hear about.

What were all the other students doing at Hogwarts while Harry was off defeating Voldemort? Did the other people in Sunnydale realise Buffy was kicking butt and saving their lives every night? Patrick Ness takes those characters, the ones that don't usually get a main spot light, and makes them the main story line. At the beginning of each chapter, you read a short snippet of what the Chosen One is getting up to, how they are saving the world or fighting zombies, but the rest of the chapter, the 'real' story, is about Mikey and his friends. Their every day lives, their own struggles and flaws, their real life battles, their relationships with each other and their families, and this all plays out like nothing else is happening around them.

I actually listened to this as an audio book, so at first the chapter beginnings were a tad confusing, because I couldn't see the difference...if that makes sense. But I loved this book a lot. It was so clever, and I was so excited to see/hear that someone had actually written this story. It's one of the things I'm always wondering in books and movies - but what about that other character? What are they up to? It was a fantasy story, with supernatural elements, but it was also your standard YA teenage-issues books, which took place in the foreground of the Chosen One saving the world.

It was a brilliant book, and I recommend it if you haven't read it yet. Definitely worth picking up. If you're interested in he audio book, here's one you can get on Audible. 

Have you read it? What did you think? 

Image and synopsis from Goodreads