It’s implied throughout the novel that both their conditions were made substantially worse in the past due to their dysfunctional parents’ poor decisions. But their problems are more than that: Mike, the main character, has anxiety that frequently manifests into OCD, and his sister Mel is recovering from an eating disorder. They’re concerned with their troubled home lives, and grades, and how everything is going to change after graduation. Much has been made of this book’s fantasy trope angle, even as the main characters are stressed to be absolutely, completely normal and average. The ones who’d die not because of destiny, but from being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The ones walking down the hallways standing at lockers hanging out after school. Instead of writing a novel about, well, the Chosen One, he’s written about the characters most of us would, in all likelihood, actually be: the background ones. In The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness spoofs “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and all the Chosen One tropes. Every new Patrick Ness book has involved verbal caps lock.
My co-workers and I have fought over ARCs of his subsequent books they’ve been passed along with strict timelines involved. (Oct.I am a huge Patrick Ness fan, ever since The Knife of Never Letting Go came out in the UK and Ireland back in 2008. Each chapter opens with an ominous (and hilarious) synopsis about the imminent showdown between the Immortals and the hipster clique, and while the payoff after all the supernatural and emotional buildup is minimal, this is Mikey’s story to tell and he’s not trying to save the world, just himself. Their diverse circle of friends includes Henna (Mikey’s crush) and Jared who is (secretly) part god. Zombie deer and eerie blue pillars of light suggest apocalypse (again) in their remote town in Washington State, but they are busy trying to survive familial dysfunction (their father is an alcoholic, their mother a power-hungry politician) that has worsened Mikey’s anxiety and given Mel an eating disorder. Siblings Mikey and Melinda know something sinister is happening when the “indie kids” start dying in mysterious ways. Having written both exquisite fantasies and heartbreaking contemporary stories, Ness ( More Than This) forays into satire, and mostly succeeds, poking fun at the Chosen One trope-imagine a novel about Bella and Edward’s classmates wrestling with exams, college admission, and unrequited love, with all those vampire/werewolf shenanigans as backdrop.
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