The Rest of Us Just Live Here

I have to admit, it took me a while to get into this one. The characters seemed to me to be overly flawed, but as the story went on you could see why they were depicted in this way. Despite this, I found it hard to relate to the main character, Mikey, as I found him a bit annoying. I also found the story was slow and I would much rather have read about what the Indie kids were up to :-)

As the book went on, I got a lot more engaged, and ended up enjoying it overall though, so a real mixed bag!

"Satchel meets the boy from the amulet, the handsomest one she’s ever seen; he tells her this isn’t a safe place for her or the others and that they should run; then he tells her she’s beautiful in her own special way and that’s when she knows she can trust him."

Patrick Ness' snark towards nowadays' YA novels about the Chosen One and the heroine with the quirky name always in the middle of a love triangle, was pure gold! It made me chuckle everytime because I could recognize the pattern of almost all of the dystopias I read in the past year and a half. About the genre, he was not trying to shame on it, he was merely taking the sh*t out of these stories, pointing out how poorly contemporary authors plot them. And I agree.

The book doesn't focus on this matter though, not in the way you might think diving into it.

"We share out craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love."

The story focuses on a group of friends, Mikey, Jared, Henna, Mel, Meredith and Nathan and their struggles through adolescence: crushes, mental illnesses, sexualities etc Every now and then they find themselves witnessing explosions, weird zombie-like beings, mysterious lights, indie kids running around town (and eventually dying) without ever being involved in the action. They just wait for the entire place to blow up or for the end of the world or for the Chosen One to save the day. It's an old story. Happens almost every year. We find ourselves in a universe that recognizes vampires and ghosts and deities and other paranormal entities as real threats (at least teenagers do, adults always deny the obvious because *angsty teenage voice* they don't understand us! *drama queens her way out of the room*).

I was surprised at how little action we witnessed. I thought we were going to read about a group of kids actually being around the heroes and looking at them while they saved the world. The book instead was about a normal group of friends who just wanted to graduate and find their place in the world. Which was fine but wasn't what I signed up for. Hence the 3 stars.

I liked it though, the characters were flawed, and not flawed because they were oh so different but because they were going through what every one of us goes through, so I found them pretty relatable. Also, I liked the take on mental illness:

"For now, as a start, I'd like to put you on some medication. Why are you making that face?"
"Medication."
"Medication... is a failure?"
"The biggest one. Like I'm so broken, I need medical help."
"Cancer patients don’t call chemotherapy a failure. Diabetics don’t call insulin a failure."

And the characters didn't just heal because a pretty boy/girl kissed them on the cheek.

I'd recommend it to you if you're looking for a normal gang of teenagers who just happens to live in a town full of Chosen Ones that never fail to blow something up. And because Patrick Ness' writing is hilarious! I'll surely check other books of his in the future!

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.