Review Detail

MY THOUGHTS
Mikey is just an average guy. Sure, his family is a mess, but all Mikey wants is to graduate high school, leave this town, and get the courage to finally ask his crush out. That's it. Yeah, weird things are happening in his town, glowing blue eyes and whatnot, but that;s not Mikey's problem. Mikey just wants to finish his last school year with his friends before the indie kids blow up the high school. Again.

There are times when you just know you're going to love a book. I knew I was going to love this book to second I found out that Patrick Ness was writing yet another book. Part of that was because Patrick Ness is an author god, but also, the premise is just too amazing! A book about a main character who is not the chosen one? Who just has to deal with the crap that the chosen one creates? YES PLEASE! I am so glad to say that this book exceeded my expectations. Yes, it's that good.

My favorite part of this book has to be how it just pokes fun at all the YA tropes. First off, I need to explain some things. In the 'world' that this book takes place in, there are indie kids. Indie kids are basically the main characters of YA novels. They have weird names, are too cool for prom, and die a lot. Also, all the weird things that happen always seem to be related to them. There's been soul-sucking ghosts, zombies, whatever, and the indie kids are always related to it. There was also mention of a few years ago where everything was vampires and romance (*cough* Twilight *cough*) and another mention of indie kids "dying beautifully of cancer". Seriously, it hits all the tropes. I haven't even hit all of them.

Mikey and his friends are essentially the classmates of the indie kids. They go to school with them and know them, but it's like how you know your classmates. Still, they have to deal with the things the indie kids do. I really liked this unique perspective on this because it gives you an idea of what the 'extras' have to go through in books. Yeah, they notice the vampires, the zombies, and whatever. Mikey and his friends do have run-ins with the weirdness going on in fact, and some of it really affects them (some doesn't. Because the weird things always go after the indie kids).

The main thing, though, is while this perspective is unique in the YA world, it's really just normal. Mikey is normal. His friends are (mostly) normal. This book is mainly just about Mikey and his friends and I enjoyed reading about a normal group of friends just trying to have average lives, in their weird world. It also felt just so real. The characters have real problems. Mikey and his sister(s) have problems with their family, but Mikey also struggles with anxiety and OCD. Other characters also have very real struggles shown (though, Jared had some out-of-ordinary ones). And it was all shown realistically! It seems like it would be boring to read about, but I really liked it and I thought it was amazing!

IN CONCLUSION
Overall, I loved this book so much! It's just so weird, so unique, so gosh darn interesting, and yes, very amusing at times. Please just pick up anything that this man writes.