Review of More Than This by Patrick Ness

Format: Paperback
Genres: mystery, lgbt,
Pages: 480
Publisher: Walker Books
Release Date: 01/05/2014
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads

A boy drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. He dies.

Then he wakes, naked and bruised and thirsty, but alive.

How can this be? And what is this strange deserted place?

As he struggles to understand what is happening, the boy dares to hope. Might this not be the end? Might there be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife?

From multi-award-winning Patrick Ness comes one of the most provocative and moving novels of our time.

There are a lot of books out there. Romance books, books about superheroes. Average books and amazing books. And then, once in a while, you get a book like More Than This. A book so unique, so perfect, that it stays with you forever and nothing quite lives up to it. Quite simply, this book blew. my. mind.

The problem with books like More Than This is that it's really hard to do them justice when reviewing, but I will try my best. It's a philosophical book, questioning what could happen after death, but I never really felt that it was trying to do that when I was reading. However, it did make me think of what I would do if I was Seth, having woken up in a familiar but barren landscape with no people around. Obviously, I'd set up camp in Waterstones but that's besides the point.

I had a lot of questions in my head while reading this too. Seth wakes up from death, something that he could not possibly come back from and yet he's thirsty, he's exhausted, he's hungry and he really needs to pee. All things that you would not expect in the afterlife. I did think that he might be in purgatory for a long time and indeed, he might have been. Honestly, I'm not sure on that part.

Every time Seth sleeps he gets vivid flashbacks to his old life. It was a pretty tough one and I hated his parents, particularly his mother. Through no fault of his own when he was young, his brother was snatched at the age of four and has needed special care ever since, something Seth's parents blame him for, despite them leaving him and his brother alone at the time. To make things worse, he and his best friend Gudmund have just been found out to be gay - and together. Seth's mom is freaking out about it and using it as an excuse to have another go at Seth. That woman made me so stabby.

I don't want to say too much about this book, and I think John Green's recommendation at the top of the cover sums it up perfectly - 'Just read it.' The cover is perfect and really makes sense when you've read the book. I haven't read the Chaos Walking trilogy yet but after reading this I'm going to start hunting down the copies that I know are in my house somewhere. If you see this, buy it. Please.