The Rest of Us Just Live Here

by Patrick Ness
Format Read: Hardcover & Audiobook
Page Count: 317
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date: October 6th, 2015
Date Read: November 3, 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.

Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.

So I'm not going to sugarcoat it - I wasn't a big fan of this book. There, I said it. I fessed up.

And the truth is that I'm pretty bummed out by that fact. I really wanted to love The Rest of Us Just Love Here because 1) PATRICK NESS 2) Best title to any book ever 3) Such a cool premise and 4) Did I mention PATRICK NESS?

The story is exactly as it was marketed before release: the story of the regular people who live in a hero-driven world. You have the "indie" kids, who are the chosen ones, always running off to save the day. And then you have everyone else, who is normal and hasn't got a clue what is happening. This is the story of those guys.

I really wanted to love this story and for parts, I did. But I didn't connect to it overall -- it was SUPER short and lacked a lot of depth. I think there were some awesome characters that I wanted to know more about, but again, I didn't get nearly enough of them. 

Ultimately I felt like we were just scratching the surface to a really great idea. But as a finished product? Mmmmmmm... I don't think it quite worked. Obviously it's well-written because it's Patrick freaking Ness, and also super entertaining with witty dialogue but this one didn't grab me like the rest of the books I've read by him (Chaos Walking and A Monster Calls).

3.5 out of 5 stars.