More Than This by Patrick Ness

Warning: Spoilers! (duh.)

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?

Image from Paper Fury

 I admittedly, did not expect much from this book. I had never read Patrick Ness and only bought the book due to the John Green review on the cover. That being said, with that being said I was both surprised and disappointed.

Much like the book this review will be in 4 parts!

Part 1! (about Part 1)

Part 1 was dull, Seth wakes up in a strange place and this is all exciting and mind blowing and I am dying to start knowing about what's going on in this world. But instead we get 200 pages of Seth walking around and getting out of breath. The highlight to this was every time Seth passed out we got a glimpse at his past life, particularly his friends and secret boyfriend Gudmund. I thought they were really cute and the dialogue between them was so lovely and the story arc of them so tragic. I found myself dying for Seth to go to sleep. I wanted more Gudmund but I never really got it. I started to assume Seth was in some purgatory type coma state but alas no. We also start to get information on his brother Owen and at this point I had no idea what happened, which is a strong theme of this book, just being on the cusp of knowing but not being told for ages. 

Part 2! BANG BANG BOOM!

Part 2 definitely stepped up the pace. The first 200 pages got tedious and suddenly with the introduction of new characters and danger (The Driver) everything got super exciting. In this part Tommy and Regine tell us about the whole Sci-Fi world they are living in , everyone was packed up and there consciousness uploaded to the internet without them even knowing. It blew my mind, I didn't see that coming and a part of me didn't believe that's really what was happening because Seth kept talking me out of it. 


Part 3! YOU SHOT HIM IN THE CHEST AND HE GOT UP! WTFFFFF!

There's awesome battles with the driver, evidence that the sci-fi internet mystery is true and suddenly Seth starts to remember everything, his entire virtual life and beyond that, Gudmund, and the murder of his brother that he has been unknowingly punishing himself for. So many kind of shocks in this part and I just blaazed through it. But then it all went down hill. 


Part 4...and ending is an ending is an ending?

I got bored at the end, we'd had so many "battles" with The Driver until finally he dies, really randomly as well. We have a few epiphany revelations that don't mean anything because we've already had all the shocks and its the lessons everyone was telling Seth from the off. Theres also no closure, it's a very open ending and almost too open ended. I feel annoyed. There needed to be More Than This (excuse the pun) to satisfy me as a reader. 

All in all, it was not a bad book. The 2nd and 3rd part were incredible and it was insightful and smart and blew my mind. It makes you look at the world, what you have, differently. I'd recommend this if you read The Shock of The Fall by Nathan Filer and enjoyed it. It was a lot like that in themes and tone and style. What did you think?