The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness

Title: The Rest of Us Just Live Here
Author: Patrick Ness
Genre: YA, fantasy
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 352 pages
Date read: October, 2021

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.


By far the best book I've read by Patrick Ness so far. The writing style took some getting used to, but once I realized what he was doing with the chapter summaries I was absolutely blown away by the brilliant way he managed to tell two stories at the same time - making the "ordinary" plot the more important one.

It's definitely YA, but it's good YA, and I really enjoyed both the characters and the plot. Mikey and Henna especially came across as very real, and liked how Mikey had separate and distinct relationships with Henna, Jared and Mel.

Really good "coming of age" story.