This is partly a review…and partly a discussion! (Because discussions are full of win.) I have a few questions for YOU at the end of this post.
Thanks to Walker Books for this review-copy! More Than This by Patrick Ness hit shelves in May, 2104.
“Books are often described as ‘mind-blowing’ but this is one of the few books in which, while reading it, I have exclaimed aloud, ‘Oh. My. God.’ on multiple occasions … Just read it.” John Green
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?
Why did I read this? Well, because John Green told me so. And who am I to argue, okay?
I knew next to nothing about the book as well, which, weeeell…proved to be both good and bad. I thought I was getting some sort of ghost story with some smushy contemporary romance perhaps and high school drama.
What did I get?
Yeah I don’t even know what to say. This should be an interesting review…
The writing was good. And I don’t mean “meh, okay”, I mean “extremely and incredibly good“. Even though I’d put it on the too-wordy side, the writing was absolutely beautiful. Our narrator is Seth and, even though it’s written in 3rd, it’s written in such a personal way. I felt totally connected to the book and therefore couldn’t put it down.
I…I read it one day, okay? And it’s huge. It’s 470-pages.
The cover is awesome. Call me a shallow bookworm, but I have serious cover love. And this?! It’s fabulous.
Also, it has fabulous friendships. I adore friendships I can root for, and the relationship between Regine and Tomasz and Seth was very dynamic. I don’t want to say too much, because: SPOILERS. (This book is seriously hard to review!) Everyone’s personalities were miles different — they clashed, they argued, they worked so well together. But I will pop in a word about Tomasz! He’s hilarious. He’s Polish, and his English is broken and so, so funny. I love funny!
Description? I see it. I see it all. My only negativity to that is: there was a loooot of description. On one hand, I felt really submerged in the book, but on the other hand…enough with the dribble GET ME SOME ACTION.
I am very, very confused. The ending. The middle. The twist. The villain. Oh, wow, I’m just going to say every-second-thing-was-very-confusing. Would it kill to say something definite?! Everything was so…interpretable. I still have no idea why it ended like it did. A quick re-con on Goodreads showed me I’m not the only one left thinking “WHAT” at the ending.
It’s kind of huge, okay? There was a lot of interior monologue. A lot of chapters covering the same desperation, confusion, silent exploring. So while that really made me connect with Seth, I felt a bit…bored? When the action started it was high-speed and heart-pounding. And erratic. LOVE. Being stuck with Seth alone in his head for the first 100-pages was a bit tedious though.
When I closed the book, you know the only thought I could formulate? What. What. What.
I really need to talk spoilers after that ending…so highlight to read:
What was with The Driver?! How about no. It seemed incredibly odd and there were never any answers as to “what” it was or “what” it really wanted to do.
Actually the lack of answers for EVERYTHING bothered me. Like how many people entered this “alternate reality”? How were their bodies still functional? How was the human race not dying? Why was Seth’s coffin in his house and not with everyone else’s? Why were their alternate realities sucky?! Why not have “perfect” ones? Come on! Also: WHY did Seth choose to go back, and what was the exact reason? Just to forgive his friends and then pop back and live with Tomasz and Regine? I am so, so confused right now…
Despite being confused: I loved this book. I loved the characters (characters are the winning ticket for me) and I loved the writing.
Basically Tomasz can sum it up for me:
“That means WHAT?” Tomasz says. “I am not happy with not being told what this means.”
Cait wins the award for the review that tells you NOTHING! Yay! Confetti and cake! She demands it! Besides reading confusing books, she’s still plodding away at her rewrites. Slow going. Her narrator is also difficult to write because he’s so dang positive. Please. Can the glass be half-empty for five minutes so we can have a little break of the happiness?
I was weighing this book up and while your rating is good, I feel the confusion might bother me, a lot. I like that you put it's good points and bad points for all to see, so that's a great thing, and this is a great review! Good question too; I like a blurb that gives me enough warning on something, like the character, possible plot direction and good strong feeling, but the more vague it is, the more I turn myself away, I'm just not for it for some reason 🙂
I kind of prefer blurbs to give me an idea of what the book is about! I've read books that are so totally NOT like what their blurbs indicate, and it's kind of put me off the book. Especially if said book is one I wouldn't normally pick up. *sigh* But I don't like the plot to be given away either!!
Blurbs that tell me nothing are actually kind of annoying. Especially when I really really want to know what's going to happen. I don't know if it's a coincidence but I always end up hating those books. I feel like they always try to hard to be mysterious you know? I'm glad you still liked this book though! And Caaiiitt, *whispers* you wrote 2104.
DID YOU NOT NOTICE. We have fast forward to the fuuuuuture!! I'm dictating this comment right now to my Jarvis like computer. -_- I will fix that. AHEM.
Hahaha well here is the Crux of the book. The reason why there are no answers? Because there must be More than This right? 😉 It drove me crazy that we didn't find out about the driver, but you know what? even though we didn't, I still really enjoyed the book! Lovely review Cait!
Because giving us answers would be…arhg ghah grrrraaah! It's okay. I'm done. 😉 It's weird. Usually I hate books that make me confused, but for some reason I absolutely loved this book.
It's good that you were able to get past your feelings of confusion, and still enjoy this book. I had to Google who John Green was because I haven't read The Fault in Our Stars yet, but I totally get where you are coming from on that front. When a fav author tells you to do something, you gots to do it! LOL I don't read blurbs very often because most of them are super vague, and I just find that they are a waste of time.
If a blurb doesn't give much away I expect big twists in the book, why else would you be so vague? And then I'm disappointed if it doesn't have an epic twist. I got this one for review, too and hope to read it soon, so I didn't read the spoiler section. I'm really looking forward to it. Awesome review, thanks for sharing 🙂
I had to skip the spoilers, because I want to read it, because John Green says so. And I love confusing. But 470 pages?! I'd probably get a bit annoyed with the over descriptive parts, but if it still keeps you reading… I love blurbs that tell you nothing. You get surprises, but then again sometimes you're disappointed because it's to do with something other than what you thought it was. I find them fun though, most of my favourites have been ones that tell you nothing, because I just HAVE to know. I guess it can go either way, because you can go in with no expectations and get something great, but then you can go in with high expectations and be disappointed. There's no middle ground with them.
Ugh. I haven't read this yet. Why have I not read this yet? I need to read this. If only so we can discuss and I can check out your spoilers. Also, I don't like blurbs in general, but the more vague the better, I say. Don't tell me what the book's about. I don't want to know.
YOU NEED TO READ THIS. And then read my spoilers. Yes. lol I'm with you on the blurbs. They seem to not be as good as they used to be. But it's better than Rebel which gave away like the FULL story line. *growls*
YOUNG JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT. Yes, that's the first thing I noticed. He looks so dorky, omggg. <3 Okay, back to the book. 😛 You know, I've been seeing so many amazing reviews for Patrick Ness' books… and despite all that, I'm still hesitant to get them. But whoa, any huge book you can finish in one day must be really, really good. And while I'm happy that you enjoyed the book for the most part, I'm a bit "eh" about the huge amounts of inner monologue. I'm not the most patient reader, so I get bored and give up on books very easily because of that. Especially if the beginning is slow. Which is what this book is. Darn! D: But maybe I should give another of Ness' books a go, instead of diving straight into this one. A Monster Calls, maybe? I know loads of people who loved that, and it has illustrations! That's a plus. Great review, Cait!
LOL I KNOW RIGHT?! SO DORKY BUT STILL.But yes, review too. (Dude, the gifs are the fun part. The review? Eh, whatever. XD) The beginning IS slow on this one…I reckon it's worth sticking to, but if you're not into confusing books + long books…yeah, this could be a problem! I've JUST got A Monster Calls out from the library. x)
This sounds confusing, so thanks for the warning! I have this waiting to be read but I have NO idea what it's really going to be about. I really hope I end up loving it though. Blurbs that give little away are tricky, but I usually get super intrigued and end up picking the book up, haha. So, clearly, they work! 🙂
And after my review you'll still have no idea what it's about. xD Haaaaa. I'm getting back at the blogging world for aaaaall the cryptic reviews of We Were Liars. x)
I LOVED THIS BOOK. Yes, it left me all confused and shit, like WTF?! Aren't there more pages? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Is this Inception?! But I did fall in love with the writing. The vivid descriptions. Seth's friendships, and FREAKING TOMASZ! This was confusing, but I recommend this one!
THAT'S HOW I FELT TOO. Where is the rest of the book? WHAT HAPPENS. WHAT THE HECK IS THIS. Aaaaall that happened.
I WILL NOT READ THE SPOILERS. I just requested this from my library. The cover is awesome.
I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
Ahhh, I was so curious about this one because of the vague synopsis. Which I suppose was the whole point, though that just annoys me further. Stop emotionally manipulating me marketing people :pI'm very curious about the confusing aspects of this one. Sometimes I actually enjoy being like ??? WHAT. Lol I like it as it leads me to being able to making crazy theories to attempt to make sense of things. Also wow, the writing must be totally amazing if you read a 400 hundred and something page novel in one day. Great review girl! I'm still curious about this one and your review only piqued my interest. Hopefully I'll be able to try this one soon and then we can cry over confusing endings.
Ah, yes those devious marketing people. They like to take us wee suckers for all we're worth, right? I'm totally a sucker for epic cover + intriguing synopsis + favourite author recommends this. This book had WIN all over it.
This sounds very interesting. Lengthy monologue does sound way tedious, but the characters sound like a lot of fun. And now I'm very curious about the book because it seems to have left people confused. The blurb itself would not have done it for me though. Vague blurbs are like vague movie trailers. I read them. I watch them. And I sit there thinking, "Well, that's nice, but you failed to catch my attention." But at the same time I don't like blurbs to give me any kind of spoiler. I love the suspense. I like to be surprised. I avoid any kind of shock cushion.
The lengthy monologue is really the only thing I sigh about a little. Vague blurbs are hit or miss with me. I'd rather not have the book spoiled…but at the same time I at least want to know what GENRE the book is!!!
I'm sorry to say that I didn't enjoy this book. I wanted to so much because of my love for Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy, but just couldn't.
N'aw, dang. But I can understand. I haven't read Chaos Walking yet, but I'm totally going to after this.
I don't know a lot about this one either! Vague spoilers make me so curious and they do make me want to try the book, but sometimes I don't get what I'm expecting and it could be a bit disappointing. On the other hand, blurbs that tell you everything make me want to rage! They leave nothing to the imagination. :T Oh dear, if I'm going to be confused, I don't think I could enjoy the book. D: Glad you liked it overall, though!
Blurbs that say too much should be BANNED. It ruins the book!!
This sounds all kinds of awesomeness! I think my little brain might be confused by it, but I'll definitely DM your or something so we can discuss it! 😀 This sounds awesome otherwise though! I love the sound of the characters, the writing (even if you did feel it was a tad on the wordy side at times), and the friendship dynamics. Definitely giving this a go! Thanks for sharing Cait, and, as always, BRILLIANT review! <3
YES DO PLEASE DO. I hope you read it and then we can flail like funky onions together. Friendships are the best in my humble opinion.
I love Patrick Ness books, and this one is no exception(though A Monster Calls will always be my favorite). It's definitely the most confusing of his books, but then again, it's pretty much one of the most confusing books I've ever read, so. . . I loved it even when I was sort of like "man, I want answers!" But it was perfect in all for NOT giving those very answers. . . I can see why some people dislike this book but at the same time I can't help but to love it.
I've got A Monster Calls out from the library! I am on a Ness binge read! lol x) It's promising to be amazing.
Ahh yay, this is next on my 'to-read' list so I look forward to reading your spoilers soon! I adore the cover and I have a feeling the writing will be exquisite.I'm not sure what to expect but I'm hoping to contrast this reading experience with "Before I Fall" and "If I Stay"…. because from the blurb it sounds like it might run along those same themes. (But maybe not??) I shall start it this week I hope!
The writing…omg, I hope you love it. I haven't read Before I fall or If I Stay so I can't really comment there…(gah, no matter how many books I read, there are still SO many I haven't yet. >_<) Can't wait to hear what you think!
OMG you had to google John Green?!! Haha! No judging no judging. x) Still, he's just very awesome and when my favourite authors recommend I listen up, right?!
This DOES have epic mind-blowing twists, so I hope you're not disappointed. x)
EXACTLY. John Green says so = I read it. Confusing is not usually my cup of tea, but I love the mind frizz I was left in after this one. x) It was HUGE though. OMG, very very huge.
I ONLY SKIMMED THROUGH YOUR REVIEW BECAUSE I WANT TO READ THIS SO BAD. But I see confusing? Oh boy. I'll let you know what I think after I get my hands on it…some day.
Do you know what's worse? Blurbs that aren't even there. Just 'This book is great – Times Magazine' / 'Changed my life – Guardian Blog'
i didn't read this book because John Green told me to. I almost sskipped it because he did. I am stuck in a very anti-John green phase.No, i read it because it is by PATRICK NESS. the king of literary YA.I loved thinking about the answers to all the questions raised. I kept asking my mom what she though about afterlife and if we were programmed bots after all (she was hugely pissed about not being very Christian about it).But i wanted to know what happens to Seth. I imagine flying to Ness-land and holding a knife to his neck till he spits it out. To Do #39 – i guess