Reviews tagging 'Grief'

More Than This by Patrick Ness

26 reviews

miagw962's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"Life does not have to go how you think it will," Tomasz says. "Not even when you are very sure what is going to happen."

Let me start by saying I love love love Patrick Ness - I love him and I love his books so much. Loved the Chaos Walking series and loved his standalone novels even more. I had heard really good things about this book, moreso than the other ones he's done so I was super pumped. And yes, it was pretty cute and interesting and easy to read and well-written. It did not, however, hit as hard as the rest of his novels have for me. It might've had something to do with the eventual

Matrix-like

premise or the slight disconnect I felt towards the main character. Suffice to say, I'm a little disappointed just because I think this book in particular is regarded as Patrick's best but I just personally prefer Release and The Rest of Us Just Live Here a lot more (and of course A Monster Calls). This is not a bad book by any means, I actually really enjoyed it. I think it has the capacity to teach young people about life and relationships. But I also think his other books do that better. Also confused why so many people were like 'omg what a crazy premise, this book completely changed my perspective on everything' like GUYS the premise is so derivative of the aforementioned cultural phenomenon-blockbuster sci-fi movie mentioned in the spoiler tag. Anyway, just a teensy bit disappointed in this one from Patrick but yeah, obviously still liked it. I hold him to a very high standard and that's not his fault!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Blood, Child death, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Kidnapping, and Suicide

bennybooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book made my life significantly worse. This man should never be allowed to write. There’s a pain in my chest that won’t go away. You caused it. Get away from me.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Kidnapping, Death, Vomit, Domestic abuse, and Gore

tmchopra's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Abandonment, Cursing, Homophobia, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

scout_jones's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Outing, Child abuse, Abandonment, Violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Kidnapping, Grief, Domestic abuse, Death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Xenophobia

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Suicide, Child abuse, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Vomit, Murder, and Gore

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Outing, Kidnapping, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Grief, Fatphobia, Car accident, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, and Homophobia

Minor: Infidelity, Racism, Bullying, Xenophobia, Sexism, Sexual content, Misogyny, Ableism, and Excrement

Graphic drowning and unreality. Attack by animal. Smoking, underage drinking. Joke about teacher/student relationship, description of character as "concentration camp guard."

emory's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I'm not sure how much of my feelings about this book are because of me and how much of them are because of the writing itself. I definitely went into this super blind, and was not expecting the whole

'surprise! we're in the matrix!'

development, and I wasn't fond of that direction for the plot. It made me drag my feet continuing to read it. That part's on me, though, as it says on every online review page that it's science fiction and young adult. 
It does tie in to one of my main complaints about the book, though. The prose was alright, if trying too hard to sound like slam poetry at times, but the plot could not seem to make up it's mind about whether to lean into the speculative science fiction or a poetic reflection. We never get enough explanation about the former and never enough exploration into the latter, which leads to a lackluster ending and grandiose conclusions without the writing effort to back it up. 

Seth's constant questioning of reality serves no purpose except a wink wink nod to the fact that we're reading a book and to provide a convenient ending. An ending in which the main revelation, "life means never knowing what we're doing", a personally dissatisfying platitude, never gets any thoughtful prose dedicated to it and leaves even more questions for the reader. Maybe life is meant to leave major unanswered questions, but I'm unconvinced that a narrative should. 
Not to mention that the book doesn't even really hold up it's title. Towards the end, when the characters start to be shoehorned into their philosophical chit chat, Seth has a revelation about his suicidal ideation and how he feels about his life. The problem is that none of the discussion about what life means and what is left for them makes much sense. It's a commendable effort, and I'm not trying to say it's a horrible book or that I hated reading it; however, the conclusions have nothing to back them up. The characters talk in circles about the meaning of life. We get no justification about why Tomasz and Regine don't get the kind of "more" that Seth seems confident he will be able to find. Even the sweet little moment about friendship has little to nothing to back it up; they've known each other for about 3 days, and have been fighting for most of it. But suddenly they have a wonderful revelation that their amazing friendship is the point of life? That the broken world they live in isn't awful?

. 
Again, I don't have all negative things to say about this book. The plot was enjoyable--just a bit empty. The writing was a bit ornate at points, but it was fitting for the hopelessness innate to the main character at points. The descriptions were theatric and vivid, and to be able to hold attention while the entire first part of the book is a single character living in an empty wasteland is no small feat. 
Mainly, I just wish More Than This had had more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Child death, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Outing, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Gore, Homophobia, Grief, Abandonment, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Car accident, and Fatphobia

A black character on a few occasions voices something fatphobic or antiblack she expects the other characters to say to her, even though ostensibly this doesn't need to be in the narrative at all, so that's a weird choice on the authors part. Additionally this is definitely not something to read if you're not in the headspace to deal with something akin to simulation theory or that the world is fake.

drcyrr's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content, Child death, Mental illness, Homophobia, and Death

phoehems's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Ok so the beginning was very interesting. Sometimes a bit repetitive, but intriguing.

There was no one for Seth to interact with for a big chunk of the beginning. And that was interesting.

The flashbacks/dreams were also very well written. 
Regine and Tomasz are amazing. They are deep interesting characters. Regine's personality keeps you guessing about her background. Tomasz is just so endearing. All the characters have tragic backstories.

This book is literally the Matrix. On a basic level, the Driver is the robots etc, 'real life' is Zion, Regine and Seth... Trinity and Neo? Does that make Tomasz Morpheus? Anyway, there's nothing in this story that I didn't 'know' from the Matrix. Yet somehow I still didn't know what was going to happen next. Well written!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Vomit, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Physical abuse, Rape, Body shaming, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, and Alcoholism

armontheroad's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Patrick Ness never misses! I went into this not knowing anything, and I’m so glad I did. After figuring out this is not just a hard-hitting contemporary novel, my reading experience just got better and better. This was gut-wrenching and beautiful. I loved our main characters, the apocalyptic setting, and the ending. Everything about this was great! Wish I had known the content warnings beforehand because this book was graphic, although it was all handled well. I will say, it made me slightly uncomfortable the way one of our characters was written, however, it is not my voice you should be listening to when it comes to that rep. I highly implore you to go look at reviews from Black readers.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Outing, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Gore, Body horror, Grief, Fatphobia, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Sexual content, Car accident, Child abuse, and Murder

eve_o's review against another edition

challenging mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

What just happened?? What? I don’t even know how to process this, I was on board until the middle. 
this had so much potential to be cool if it just got proofread a bit and maybe didn’t steal the plot twist. the whole ending i wanted to slap him for being so annoying. i audibly complained so often that my mom had to ask me to be quiet, but it was a fun, quick read, but check trigger warnings!

when they introduced the whole matrix thing i was so disappointed

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Suicide

Moderate: Blood, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Fatphobia, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Outing, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Alcohol, Excrement, Infidelity, and Vomit