I liked the general themes of Patrick Ness’ The Rest of Us Just Live Here, more than the execution of the story.
In this book, as crazy events unfold in the background by Indie Kids (yes there are strange mystical hipsters), Mikey and his friends live somewhat ordinary lives as teenagers about to graduate high school. Mikey wants to find out what is going on, why the Indie Kids are dying, but realizes throughout that he isn’t, and doesn’t need to be the hero of this story.
My gripes with this book is that while I tried to sympathize with Mikey and his OCD, he eventually became super annoying. A lot of it read like someone constantly feeling sorry for himself for not having the girl of his dreams, or way too fixated on being jealous of Nathan, when it was obvious he didn’t need to be.
I also didn’t find the characters that relatable. Sure they suffered things like anorexia, OCD, and teen love but it read at times like it was written for someone without that much experience in the area. In the end it was a bit tedious to finish.
