The Rest of Us Just Live Here audiobook

"I wonder what was going on last night. With the lights."She shrugs. "Probably some apocalypse."the problem with writing a book like More Than This is that you then have to write a book after More Than This. and i was a little apprehensive about this one. my copy has this cover:which makes it look almost like a middle grade book, and i was concerned that it wouldn't live up to the mind-shattering acrobatic metafiction that was More Than This.and it doesn't. nothing ever will.but that doesn't mean this isn't a great book all on its own. this book plays with the literary convention of the "chosen one," - those who are set apart from their peers and tasked with a responsibility no less than that of saving the world. and they wrestle with this burden and forgo having a normal adolescent life because they are the only ones who can do what needs to be done and they fight evil and deputize their friends in the struggle and still manage to pass their math tests.this book is not about the chosen ones.this book is about the blurry kids in the background of the wide-angle shots - the ones who are just hurrying to class.it's about these people: they attend the same school as the chosen ones, and they witness the horrors that seem to follow "the indie kids*" around, but they are uninvolved in their exploits, in their occasional demises. on the sidelines, all they can do is remark is that "They better not blow up the high school again."the trials of the indie kids open each chapter, with a brief synopsis of what is going on in their struggle while the book itself is primarily concerned with bringing the blurry kids into the spotlight to show that, yeah, there's a portal of doom opening in the gymnasium, but other things are happening in what would ordinarily be the background, and those struggles are every bit as challenging as the ones centered around the portal. people have eating disorders, OCD, distant or absent parents, unrequited love, car accidents. and these things matter."Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway."it's a great blend of fantasy and contemporary fiction, as the separate storylines overlap and commingle: jealousy and zombie deer, the alzheimer's of a beloved grandmother and strange blue glows, bickering and bombs, prom and portals. there's a little cheating, since one of the "normal" kids is also a descendant of the goddess of cats and has a couple of powers of his own, but for the most part, the problems are familiar ones, and they are dealt with in mortal ways.being a long-time lover of cheesy teen horror movies, and having finally caved last year and watched buffy, there were plenty of nods, references, and allusions to the chosen one genre that i really appreciated, but i appreciated even more ness' little reversals."Now you're sure we're not going to be ritualistically murdered?…Prom night. Group of diverse teens. Remote cabin…"…"That's not the story that's happening," Mel says to him. "We're not the kind of people that story happens to."it's a fun, clever book, and while it's no More Than This, it's way more than it appears.* an rare unfortunate decision on ness' part, IMHO.*******************************************************well, he hasn't failed me yet.and the God of mountain lions???even if that's just a figure of speech, i'm sold.come to my blog!

“Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can.” If there’s a word that would best describe author, Patrick Ness, it would be ingenious. True, the story may not have the most adventurous plot but the premise sure is brilliant and completely original. I have personally never thought about the side characters, the ordinary people watching Katniss and Peeta fight for their lives in the hellish arena…...or the kid watching Spiderman fight the bully at the school hall. I doubt anyone has ever thought about them, like really thought of them until Patrick Ness.This creative story is inventively about a group of teenage non-heroes, the none “Indie” kids who try to just live their ordinary lives in a small town where zombies, soul eating ghosts and vampires are daily ordinary occurrences and where the Indie kids die off one after the other but which isn’t a huge deal because the non-heroes are not really affected, unless they become one of the “casualties.”At first, I found the story kind of weird and confusing because of the unique structure with a small side story about the Indie kids at the start of each chapter, but not long after (when I finally got the hang of it), I started to really enjoy it because the writing is surprisingly easy and funny to read. The lack of action in the plot makes perfect sense because the focus of the story is the personal struggle of the individual characters who may not have been chosen as heroes but who are still heroes of their own lives. I was surprised at the amount of social issues that were effectively tackled in the novel despite the light and comic tone. I was also impressed at the fullness of the development of the characters despite the relatively few pages (for a sort of apocalyptic novel) and satisfied at the conclusion that would make this standalone contemporary/slight apocalyptic novel one of a kind. Lastly, I learned from the Author’s Note that the author auctioned off the chance to have the winner’s name in the book for a Red Cross fund raising project to help the countless victims of typhoon Haiyan that devastated the Philippines in 2013. :,) I think I officially love Patrick Ness now.

First Read: November 2017, Rating: 5/5 starsSecond Read: April 2020, Rating: 5/5 starsPatrick Ness doing what Patrick Ness does best: emotionally investing his readers before breaking their hearts.

This was a little cringy and cliched sometimes but I actually had a really great time with it. I enjoyed the concept a lot, it was a good contemporary with a fantasy twist. The writing style was quick and easy and the characters were also pretty interesting. Sure, especially the side characters could've been more developed but they weren't totally depthless either.I'm looking forward to reading more of Ness' books.

My favourite Patrick Ness book by far, it just felt like my perfect genre; contemporary but with a fantastical element that didn't overtake the character-driven nature of the narrative. I'm obsessed with this.

A new Patrick Ness novel is always a big event and this was no less exciting. I avoided reading all reviews of the book before I started because I wanted to be surprised, especially as I know Patrick Ness has a habit of doing just that.If you read a lot of young adult fantasy or science fiction, you'll have come across teenagers that fight vampires, wield magic and join rebel groups to fight against the government or zombies. They are known as the indie kids. The Rest of Us Just Live Here is about the teenagers who live in the same world as the indie kids, but who are just trying to get through their everyday lives. Because they aren't the Chosen Ones.The Rest of Us Just Live here is a satire of young adult literature, but a friendly one. It's about the teenagers who aren't named Finn or Satchel, who aren't 'dying beautifully of cancer', and who aren't here to save the world. They're ordinary and their problems are ordinary and their friends and families are ordinary. But they're a joy to read about, especially as a fan of young adult contemporary fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed the concept and it made me feel a little odd, as if I were living in a world where all these fantastical things were happening in the background and I was just going about my life, talking about books on social media, going to the cinema and meeting friends for frozen yoghurt. At the beginning of each chapter, we're told all about the exciting and dangerous adventures the indie kids have been on, and they make an appearance in the normal lives of our protagonists because they're someone's friends and classmates, too.The Rest of Us Just Live Here is a well-written and wonderful exploration of what it's like to grow up. It's a mix of the closeness you feel to the characters in Chaos Walking, the sadness of A Monster Calls, and the delicate tackling of mental health in More Than This. I adore Mikey's little sister Meredith, who is much like me and my obsession with Taylor Swift. I enjoyed the friendship between Mikey and his best friend Jared, and watching him reveal his feelings for Henna. And I thought the way Patrick Ness approached anxiety and OCD – from showing the difference between obsession and compulsion, and the way anxiety can make someone feel like you're the one your friends could do without, to confirming that no one is to blame for their own mental health – was important and much-needed. The Rest of Us Just Live Here might not be as fast-paced as Chaos Walking, as mind-boggling as More Than This or as frightening as A Monster Calls, but it'll stay with you all the same.Thank you to the publisher for providing this book for review!I also reviewed this book over on Pretty Books.

I really enjoy the author's writing style and his book A Monster Calls will go down as one of my lifetime favorites. I hadn't read any other of his books and grabbed this at a local bookstore to give it a shot. The story flows and takes some odd twists and turns. I wasn't sure what to expect and don't typically read YA so went into it with an open mind. My favorite character is Jared because he thinks of others first. The main character was frustrating at times with his self involved thinking...as teenagers can often be. I would have liked to had more story built around the indie kids and what battle they were fighting, as at times it got a little murky. However the story was entertaining and very easy to read. I felt the author was fair about mental illness and didn't turn it into a trope.

"They've always got some story going on that they're the heroes of. The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part." I'm a little taken aback by how much I enjoyed this little tale devoid of knives and murder and grand soundbites. The Rest of Us Just Live Here, like its blurb advertises, is about normal kids doing normal stuff, encountering normal problems, while the Clarys and Meghans and Harrys fight supernatural stuff and have sweeping adventures. At the beginning of every chapter, we get a little peek into what the "indie kids"are up to. "Chapter the fourteenth, in which Satchel doubts the Prince's intentions towards her; he weeps, professing his eternal love, one that he's been waiting to give for millennia but had never found a repository for until he met Satchel." Savage. Absolutely savage. Ness pokes fun of YA tropes, like how characters never seem to use the Internet (Hiya, Nora Grey) and the weird names they have (Hiya, Eureka). The protagonist Mike, on the other hand, struggles with his OCD. He helps his sister, who is a recovering anorexic. He takes his little sister to see a boy band. He has an alcoholic father and a mother who's running for Congress. Mundane stuff that Ness somehow makes interesting through excellent characterization and by drawing on worries we have in our everyday lives. What am I going to do after high school? What happens if me and my friends drift apart? We don't get definite endings for every plot line, but the book ends with a message of hope. Life goes on and you just roll with the punches, doing the best you can.The diversity Ness weaves into the cast is awesome, too. But what I really want to praise is its portrayal of mental illness. "Feelings don't try to kill you, even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You're responsible for its consequences, you're responsible for treating it. But Michael, you're not responsible for causing it. You're not morally at fault for it. No more than you would be for a tumor." Taking medication isn't admitting defeat. It's usually healthy and necessary, and I wish more books showed it that way.You can pretty much tell by how short this review is that I'm struggling to find the right words to pitch this book. I mean, it's hard. It's simply about ordinary kids living ordinary lives—but that doesn't make it any less extraordinary.

I'm not only surprised and delighted after reading this, but I was surprised and delighted *while* reading it from almost the very start.I went, "Oh cool, it's almost like the UF YA version of a Redshirts satire, where the Indie kids all die or don't while immortals create rifts in the high school universe and there's multiple Indie Flynns and gods and ghosts and vampires roam the halls, fall in love, and then die like little preeeecious flowers,... and everyone else just lives there. Satire! A light, YA satire or even a full-on lampoon of the entire industry."I was hooked. I had only been reading a few pages.Little did I know that I could *then* begin reading it on multiple levels, even having our endearingly flawed non-Indie narrator spelling it out for us, that all the magic doesn't necessarily have to be real for us to believe it, but he does, and so does his friends, and that's cool and he doesn't have to believe our reality, either. :)*Jaw Drops*Okay! That's pretty damn well awesome and clearly stated and I can't love either interpretation more than I already do. And strangely enough, all these quirky-queer deer-god encounters only compliments and deepens the other half of the story, which is actually about finding your way to adulthood and exploring possibilities.But you ask, "Isn't that what all these UF YA novels do?"Sure, but I haven't read any that has been as self-consciously entertaining, creative, or straightforward about it. Ness knows the industry like a master. All those quirky flavors of the mass market teeny-books are expressed so deftly and interestingly in their own right, and I fairly stood up and started clapping at the chapter summaries... (Right before I began parsing how those chapter summaries *actually* fit into the real text. (Which is often not clear at first glance, but also completely unnecessary for our enjoyment of the text.:))I think Patrick Ness might be becoming one of those *always read* authors for me. I can't *not* trust that he'll be creative, clear, and a veritable master of his craft. Not only that, but I seem to be having a huge amount of fun every time I read his work. Okay, it's only up to two books, now, but you get the idea. Anyone who can hit a home run like this, twice out of two, has got my attention.Great stuff!

Que história mágica e louca.Pra começar que, por mais que eu tenha visto alguns canais falando desse livro, eu deletei TOTAL da minha mente que ele tem um pouco de fantasia. Ou seja, ele é um YA Contemporâneo com aparições esporádicas de criaturas fantasmas. Eles falam em deuses (Não de uma maneira subjetiva, eles realmente existem), de vampiros, fantasmas, etc. Mas 80% do livro é sobre o dia a dia de 4/5 adolescentes de uns 17 anos, sofrendo seus problemas cotidianos. Pra deixar a história mais dinâmica, o personagem principal está voltando a ter episódios de TOC, e a irmã dele já teve distúrbios alimentares. Falar sobre esses assuntos em livros pra esse público jovem, é sempre enriquecedor, e quando feito de forma delicada e profunda, já merece uma estrelinha extra. Além disso, TEM PERSONAGEM LGBT, e eu amei ele, por mais que tenha uma situação que foi muito babaca e eu fiquei com ódio por alguns instantes.E pra finalizar, o mais divertido disso tudo, é que as partes fantásticas do livro são realmente apenas questões paralelas, porque NÃO, esse não é um livro que o personagem principal é o chosen one que vai desvendar tudo sozinho. Essa trama acontece meio que destacada da história principal e os protagonistas apenas sofrem as consequência desses fatos bizarros.Enfim, eu peguei esse livro sem muita expectativa, inclusive eu joguei uns 6 audiobooks pro meu celular e aparentemente só esse funcionou e ai pensei "bom, tá escolhido então por qual começar" e que surpresa maravilhosa. Mais feliz ainda eu estou de ter esse livro em first edition com autógrafo do Patrick.

El 19 de diciembre saqué este libro de mi estantería convencido de que era momento de leerlo. Cuando quise darme cuenta, ya estaba pasando la última página con lágrimas en los ojos por tener que despedirme de esta historia que TANTO me movió. La calificación actual de "The rest of us just live here" en Goodreads es de 3,78. Para mí, de todas formas, este libro se lleva 5 estrellas sin ningún tipo de duda. Entiendo los motivos por los cuales la gente se ve decepcionada o no les gusta el libro, pero el mío fue un caso particular que voy a explicarles a continuación. La razón por el cual aplazaba la lectura de este libro es el TERROR de que algo escrito por Patrick Ness me decepcione. Todo el mundo le daba calificaciones muy bajas, así que evitaba tener que pasar por la dura tarea de leerlo con posibilidades de decepción. En cierto punto creo que esto es bueno, ya que terminé leyendo el libro en el momento EXACTO. Necesitaba esta historia sin saberlo, y agradezco a Patrick Ness por siempre ser capaz de calentarme un poco el corazón. THE REST OF US JUST LIVE HERE nos plantea la vida de aquellas personas que no son las elegidas. En las historias que conocemos suele haber un héroe destinado a salvar el día y acabar con los villanos. Este libro, sin embargo, nos habla de Mikey, un adolescente común y corriente cuya única misión es graduarse y saber qué va a hacer con su vida. ¿Los elegidos? Los demás. Su destino no es matar vampiros ni salvar al mundo de algún ataque, esa es responsabilidad de los elegidos. Así vemos, entonces, como Mikey tiene una vida relativamente normal mientras sus acciones cotidianas se ven influenciadas por la tarea que el elegido tiene que cumplir de forma paralela (Evitar el fin del mundo, ni más ni menos) No sé por donde empezar a describir todo lo que AMÉ del libro. Los personajes son maravillosos. Nada extraordinarios, pero se instalaron en mi corazón y van a vivir ahí para siempre. Existe una diversidad increíble entre ellos y se tratan temas difíciles con la seriedad que merecen. Mikey sufre de ansiedad, derivada en un trastorno obsesivo compulsivo que lo obliga a repetir sus acciones una y otra vez porque siente que no lo hace bien. Su hermana Mel tuvo problemas alimenticios y las cosas se complicaron mucho. Y los amigos. OH LOS AMIGOS. Jared, Henna, Nathan, incluso Meredith... todos contribuyen y aportan lo suyo al camino de Mikey y son absolutamente entrañables. DESTACABLE: Nunca había visto una relación de hermanos tan pura y conmovedora como la de Mikey y Mel. Ambos tienen problemas bastante graves pero se apoyan mutuamente y avanzan a pesar de todo, lo cual me parece lo más tierno de la vida. Algo que quiero agregar es lo mucho que me sentí identificado con el protagonista. No, no puedo relacionarme con sus problemas exactamente porque no sufro de TOC, pero aún así hay algo en él que gritaba mi nombre. No sé si es la forma en que ve la vida, la manera en que reacciona frente a las situaciones o sus preocupaciones lo que me hacía verme en él, pero definitivamente lo siento muy cerca y voy a conservar el recuerdo de mis pequeñas e involuntarias sonrisas de satisfacción y orgullo cada vez que Mikey lograba algo bueno, así como las lágrimas que no podía contener en escenas duras. El libro es estúpidamente gracioso. Se presentan (a propósito) situaciones ridículas y diálogos absurdos que me hacían reír a carcajadas. Hablo en serio, A CARCAJADAS (Sí, en voz alta). Patrick Ness toma TODAS las cosas típicas de los libros juveniles y se burla de ellas de una forma que resulta inevitablemente divertida. MARAVILLOSO. Cabe destacar también que cada capítulo comienza diciendo "Capítulo uno, en el que..." y se nos narra brevemente qué está haciendo el elegido en ese momento mientras el resto de personajes está viviendo su vida. Creo que estas eran las partes en las que más me reía por lo intencionalmente ABSURDA que es la misión. De verdad. Este libro posee un perfecto contraste entre lo divertido y lo serio. Recordemos que tratamos con personajes cuyas vidas se ven afectadas por trastornos psicológicos. No son perfectos, son reales. Y está plasmado de una forma hermosa. En fin. Opinión impopular: amé con locura a este libro. Lo devoré en unas pocas horas y no tuve suficiente. Pasó sin dificultades a ser uno de mis libros favoritos y voy a atesorarlo para siempre por la cantidad de emociones que me hizo sentir. Gracias, Patrick Ness. Gracias.

16/11/18: After a re-read I can for sure say I preferred this book the second time around so I’m increasing my rating from 3 to 4 stars. I feel I understood the stories more (there are two going on at once) and the ending was incredibly satisfying. I would recommend it if you want something a bit different.----First Review 2016: I sadly didn’t like this one as much as some of Ness’ other books. I liked the plot but it didn’t stand out to me and just a couple weeks later I was already forgetting important plot points from the story. Now about two? years after I can say I can’t remember a single thing about this story except a high school blows up? (It’s in the blurb, not really a spoiler) I have the audiobook so should be listening to it soon. I want to remember what this was about.