Reader Review – More Than This by Patrick Ness

More Than This
Author: Patrick Ness

In my opinion, More Than This is Patrick Ness’s greatest book. The story follows a sixteen year old, Seth Wearing, through his life as it is distorted in strange ways, beyond his own imagination. It begins with him drowning. Helpless. The sea’s plaything, he is rammed into a cluster of rocks, breaking his shoulder, the second time his skull, splintering into his brain. He dies. There is no possible recovery. And then he wakes. Starving, thirsty, restrained from moving, but alive. In a haze of disbelief, unconsciousness falls on him again – this time, when he comes back to reality, he is outside a house, cuts all over him, and overcome with such tremendous fatigue that he is afraid standing will kill him. Looking around himself, Seth realises that his surroundings are vaguely familiar. As time passes, more and more images are recalled, and flashbacks of his life come to him as disturbingly realistic dreams. The story unfolds – Seth meets a hostile figure, clad in black, hunting living things. He finds two teenagers, as surprised as he is to meet them. And as he explores his strange second life, he must make a decision – is this his imagination – or real life?

Chosen by JG, aged 12