The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness

58%
01.07.18

There's no denying that Patrick Ness is among the most accomplished and inventive authors of Young Adult fiction. He's great at developing characters and experimenting with ideas, so the 'off-centre heroism' premise for this was intriguing. But it didn't really work, ending up an uncomfortable mix of sketchy fantasy and teenage angst.

A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

62%
07.05.16

Beautiful and terrible - that's the world of the admirable Patrick Ness and a painful mirror on the real world. This fable is spun from delicate words and difficult circumstances - a tour de force, I suppose, but lacking a core emotional engagement that would really have drawn me in.

The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness

71%
08.02.14

An unflinching dystopian vision of violence, squalor and moral bankruptcy, you say. The narrator subjected to unrelenting pain and disappointment, you say. Hang on a mo while I look for the barrel with the laughs in it. It's the sheer quality of the writing that buoys the story along, carefully measured and complex. At its heart, it's a meditation on choice and its consequences. Well, it's certainly worth choosing to read it.