The Rest of Us Just Live Here, By: Patrick Ness

       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... 

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My Rating: ★★★★☆

       The Rest of Us Just Live Here was such a unique and loveable book. The premise of it is that it takes place during an I Am Number Four or The 5th Wave type story, but it follows the story of four friends who are the everyday characters in this textbook YA fantasy story. The main characters are the people who are trying to live their lives while the "indie kids" are dealing with the occasional alien invasion, vampire takeover, or ghost revival. Mikey just wants to survive his senior year and graduate high school while dealing with everyday challenges, like anxiety, an alcoholic father, a sister with anorexia, and a best friend who also happens to be part god.
​       This book is so creative when it comes to the overall plot. I love how it is a spoof on every young adult book out there and takes on a viewpoint that I've thought about on multiple occasions. What is life like for the everyday people in this story? The book even starts out by asking a simple question: What if you aren't the Chosen One?
       A standout element of this book was definitely the ability to make me laugh out loud. Patrick Ness does a fabulous job creating Mikey and developing his unique voice as a narrator. Mikey’s story-telling is the perfect balance of telling us about the serious situations and poking fun at how crazy it all is. My favorite parts of the overall narration are when Ness breaks into second-person narration and has Mikey talk to the reader. It’s something little that adds a lot to the book.
       I also really like that even though the book is set in an alternate reality with vampires, ghosts, and even the occasional alien invasion, the story focuses on a boy with anxiety who just wants to graduate high school. Oddly enough, this book was one which I could really relate, since it collides my two words: real life, and the world in my books. It also tackles the issue of graduating high school, and even though I’m a junior, I am experiencing my last year with some of my friends who are graduating this year.

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If you haven’t read The Rest of Us Just Live Here, I highly recommend it, and if you have, leave your thoughts in the comments!


From “not an indie kid”,
Ashton

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.

― Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here