The Rest Of Us Just Live Here
Jun. 17th, 2016 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraThis is possibly the easiest to read of Patrick Ness's novels - which, given that his other books are the Chaos Walking series, which remain some of the most difficult and upsetting books I've ever read (but, I mean, are phenomenal and important in what they're grappling with) and A Monster Calls which waaaaah and More Than This which, like, several content warnings there, so, yeah, Ness, not to be picked up lightly. The Rest Of Us Just Live Here has its share of hard stuff but, I don't know, still manages to be very funny and relatable, and that's part of the point?
The premise here is that this is a book about some of the "normal" kids at a high school that periodically faces supernatural problems (gods, vampires, etc) that the "indie kids" have to dramatically deal with. So, the "normal" kids have all kinds of, like, real, human interpersonal stuff going on, against the background of the latest supernatural threat. Ness keeps a lot of different threads going, any one of which could probably have been An Issue Book in the hands of a lesser writer, but all together, it makes a bigger point about everybody having stuff going on, and there's some beautiful moments here about pity vs caring, and loving your friends, and, inevitably, I cried, but not in the Monster Calls way. More like the Team Human way, and that is my #1 if-you-liked recommendation for this, it feels a lot like Team Human in its genre meta and emotional beats. Also, more generally, Buffy, maybe Karen Healey's The Shattering.
I'm going to put some non-specific spoilers behind a cut, first a character thing I really liked, and then some content-warning-ish stuff. I liked that the main character is straight, and his best friend is gay, and they've fooled around in the past, and it's entirely not a big deal? I just really liked that, as part of their backstory. As far as content: two significant instances of animal harm, a deer is struck by a car and a mountain lion is supernaturally wounded. Main character has OCD and narrates being stuck in loops. A character is mostly recovered from disordered eating. Alcoholic parent. Probably other stuff I'm not thinking of, feel free to ask if you like content warnings, I'm always willing to talk about stuff I've read.
The premise here is that this is a book about some of the "normal" kids at a high school that periodically faces supernatural problems (gods, vampires, etc) that the "indie kids" have to dramatically deal with. So, the "normal" kids have all kinds of, like, real, human interpersonal stuff going on, against the background of the latest supernatural threat. Ness keeps a lot of different threads going, any one of which could probably have been An Issue Book in the hands of a lesser writer, but all together, it makes a bigger point about everybody having stuff going on, and there's some beautiful moments here about pity vs caring, and loving your friends, and, inevitably, I cried, but not in the Monster Calls way. More like the Team Human way, and that is my #1 if-you-liked recommendation for this, it feels a lot like Team Human in its genre meta and emotional beats. Also, more generally, Buffy, maybe Karen Healey's The Shattering.
I'm going to put some non-specific spoilers behind a cut, first a character thing I really liked, and then some content-warning-ish stuff. I liked that the main character is straight, and his best friend is gay, and they've fooled around in the past, and it's entirely not a big deal? I just really liked that, as part of their backstory. As far as content: two significant instances of animal harm, a deer is struck by a car and a mountain lion is supernaturally wounded. Main character has OCD and narrates being stuck in loops. A character is mostly recovered from disordered eating. Alcoholic parent. Probably other stuff I'm not thinking of, feel free to ask if you like content warnings, I'm always willing to talk about stuff I've read.
