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frozenheartv's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
5 stars
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🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
“Are you serious? Real life is only ever just real life. Messy. What it means depends on how you look at it. The only thing you’ve got to do is find a way to live there.” - Regine
🧠My thoughts
I have never rated any YA book 5 stars, but here I am doing so. It’s not because YA books are not good but for me, most of them don’t hit the right spot and have annoying dialogues. This book was just a random pick but I was so glad I got to read it.
Don’t get me wrong, this book wasn’t perfect but it raised so many good questions that non-YA books can’t even do it this well. Reading this book felt like watching a movie fleshing out in front of my eyes. What is real and what is not? Are we sure that the world we are living in is perfect? If not, would we ever find another perfect world where there would be no bad things? Just like how we are trying to find another better planet to live on if Earth went down or building Metaverse to escape the harsh and sad reality? It was very heartbreaking to read about all of the trauma that the characters have to go through while being so young. Was that the reason why they sound more mature than they should be?
The storyline was pretty strong for a sci-fi book that was meant to confuse the audience. Most of the things were “kind of explained” at the end.
For being such a great book, it still has drawbacks of course. The pace of the part 1 was sometimes really slow for me. I understood the author’s idea but I thought it would still be great if it was cut in half. Part 2 pacing was really good but part 3 was again a bit slower than I expected.
đź‘Ť What I like
- Strong storyline
- Deeply meaningful conversations and philosophies
- World-building is very trustable
- Sci-fi parts were creative
đź‘Ž What I don't like
- Can be very slow in some parts
- I wish that the sci-fi parts could be delved deeper into
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse and Child abuse
Moderate: Kidnapping, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Deportation
Minor: Homophobia and Abandonment
zoejjj's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-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
2.0
BOOO it felt like the longest book o have ever listened too! Good things first: I listened to this as an audiobook read by Nick Podehl and he was wonderful. Great Job. The little polish boy who’s name I cannot spell (tomage?) iconic. I love him, he was the highlight of this book.
Bad stuff: PLEASE PATRICK NESS EDIT YOUR BOOKS. The pacing and mystery was actually really good until we meet Tomage (?) and Rajean (again audiobook I do not know how to spell these names) and then the book begins to drag on for chapters and chapters of meaningless interactions. It’s like Patrick couldn’t decide what kind of book he wanted to write and decided to include a scene (or multiple chapters!!) that followed one plot line that eventually went nowhere. If he had answered a single!! question maybe I could forgive him but the ending is stupid. The premise is promising but he ends it stupidly. Go watch the matrix, it’s essentially the same thing.
I wanted to give up when I had 45 minutes left and could barely slog through the ending. That should’ve been the most on the edge of your seat part of the book.
Bad stuff: PLEASE PATRICK NESS EDIT YOUR BOOKS. The pacing and mystery was actually really good until we meet Tomage (?) and Rajean (again audiobook I do not know how to spell these names) and then the book begins to drag on for chapters and chapters of meaningless interactions. It’s like Patrick couldn’t decide what kind of book he wanted to write and decided to include a scene (or multiple chapters!!) that followed one plot line that eventually went nowhere. If he had answered a single!! question maybe I could forgive him but the ending is stupid. The premise is promising but he ends it stupidly. Go watch the matrix, it’s essentially the same thing.
I wanted to give up when I had 45 minutes left and could barely slog through the ending. That should’ve been the most on the edge of your seat part of the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Bullying, Abandonment, Outing, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Violence, Physical abuse, Grief, Death of parent, Death, and Child death
matthewreece's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Deportation, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Outing, Self harm, Confinement, Grief, Suicide attempt, Child abuse, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Suicide, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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