More than this by Patrick Ness was a book I was anticipating to read for a long time. I didn't actually know what it was about until I bought it, I just heard good things about it and it interguied
me. In fact, I was interguied the whole way through reading it, it was such an interesting and meaningfull book.
It is based around a boy, called Seth, who drowns and dies, and then he wakes up. He wakes up in a familiar place, but it is full of dust but empty of life. He is alone and confused, and wondering why he is there. He settles on thinking it is Hell.
Soon he realises this familiar place his old house, before he moved to America to forget the past, before he died. However, the shops and atmosphere is deserted and soon he decides to start raiding shops and supermarkets so he can have a chance to 'live' in this strange place.
HIs guilt from the past still haunts him from the place where he is woken up. It is still vivid in his memory when he opens the door to a kidnapper who takes his little brother away. The place where he wakes up teaches him, and the reader, lessons about life and gives him answers he never imagined of.
However, soon he comes across two more people who are yet trying to find and why they are here and what brought them. Together, they try to discover mysteries and you learn more about their past, why they have died and what they are meant to do now.
When Seth goes to sleep, the book takes you through Seth's dreams, which are more like him reliving his most valued memories. This means you understand what his life was like before death, and the problems leading up to him taking his own life so long. It also means you learn more about his character, and the people around him.
The three characters in this book, together, are all really different and have such different pasts which you learn about as the book goes on. They become friends and handle 'life' threatening battles together, and they also all have very different opinions on where they are and why. They soon discover that a strange van is following them and they know that the driver is threatning, and they know they will kill them, or whatever he can do in this strange place.
The book is in third person so it really feels like someone is telling you a story and these fictional events, and you begin to believe it is true! Moreover, this book is very relevant and contains so many real messages inside of it.
Also, you still get the feel of Seth and his thoughts through him reliving his moments in his last life, and sometimes it writes his thoughts, in italics or brackets, which is a really good affect, as it feels like he is butting in to the telling of the story, which makes it even more affective and well written.
The descriptive language was great, which I think was challenging in this novel and so many different things happened, sometimes all at once, but the author managed to always make it clear and vivid in your head.
The book was sometimes scary (it kept me not the edge of my seat) funny, sad and very meaningful, it had all aspects of a great teen book in one book. I couldn't match it to a single genre which made it much more interesting and deep.
Furthermore, it was an incredibly gripping read, and although 500 pages, I read it fast in a couple of days as I was so interested in what would happen at the end and I wanted answers as much as the fictional characters did.
My favourite thing about this book was how relevant the title was, which doesn't normally happen. The answer to the end was written on the front cover and you won't understand this until finished the book, but the three words have so much meaning and it is the main message of the book.
It was a very individual book with a plot I had never read about before, it was really cleverly written and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone. It is a young adult book but I think adults would enjoy it to. I recommend it to people ages 13+
Buy it:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/more-than-this/patrick-ness/9781406350487
https://www.amazon.co.uk/More-Than-This-Patrick-Ness/dp/1406350486/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1499798790&sr=8-2