Review: More Than This

By Patrick Ness
Available now from Candlewick (Llewellyn)
Review copy

A boy is in the ocean, tossed about and eventually bashed upon the rocks.  He then wakes up in his childhood home in England, not America.  From there, he begins to piece together who he is and what's going on.  Every time he dreams, he sees his memories.  Thus, he remembers that his name is Seth and assumes he's in hell.

You see, something terrible happened to Seth's younger brother back when their family lived in England.  Seth has felt guilty his entire life.  He's also struggling with memories of his friends and his secret boyfriend.  Then his ruminations are interrupted when he comes across two other people.

I flip-flopped back and forth between really liking MORE THAN THIS and being meh about it.  I felt that as more was explained, the book became sillier and less appealing.  But then Ness partially saved it by upping the ambiguity about whether the supposed explanation for what was happening was correct.  And honestly, I prefer to believe that it isn't, because it really doesn't make much sense.

However, there were several aspects that worked wonderfully.  The flashbacks are all top-notch, particularly the ones dealing with Seth and Gudmund's relationship.  Regine and Tomascz are good characters, although noticeably less developed than Seth.  (How can they not be, when the entire first part of MORE THAN THIS is his inner monologue?)  They both have their own traumas that they are working through.

MORE THAN THIS is an unusual book, with some sections that are very philosophical and others that are horrific.  It's wonderfully written, as can be expected of Ness.  I don't think it's his best book.  However, while it might be messy, but it is also ambitious, and I always respect ambition.  I think the best parts of MORE THAN THIS outweigh its weaknesses.

Review: Losing It

Edited by Keith Gray
Stories by A.S. King, Melvin Burgess, Keith Gray, Patrick Ness, Anne Fine, Sophie McKenzie, Bali Rai, Jenny Valentine, Mary Hooper, Andrew Smith
Available now from Carolrhoda Books (Lerner)
First published in 2010 by Anderson Press without the stories by Smith and King
Review copy

LOSING IT is a collection of ten short stories based around the concept of virginity.  It's long gone for some of the characters, and others don't lose it at all.  Some of the characters live here and now, others live long ago or far away.  To me, only a few of the stories really stood out, but it is worth buying for those stories.

A.S. King was the name that stood out the most for me, but I love her work.  I liked her raw story, about a girl who gets caught shoplifting for the total user she's dating.  While the concept of LOSING IT is mildly shocking, it's not really a shocking collection.  King's story is probably the boldest.  My biggest problem with it is that it ends far too soon.

My second favorite is Patrick Ness' story "Different for Boys."  It follows a pretty predictable path, but his teen boy voices are spot on and now that I think about it this story might be a little racy too.  I'm twenty four; I'm not sure I'm the best judge.  (Also, the Kindle galley I read had no black boxes.  Be envious, those who read the final version!)  I enjoyed the humor of the story and thought that the structure - centered around figuring out what losing it is for a gay guy - worked very well.

I was also quite fond of "Chat-Up Lines" by Melvin Burgess and "The Age of Consent" by Jenny Valentine.  Burgess' story involves a younger boy dating a popular older girl who doesn't know his age and that he's social suicide.  Valentine's involves a crazy discussion at a family dinner, where an older relative holds forth on what she knows about sex and choosing who to have it with.

My biggest disappointment was probably "The White Towel" by Bali Rai, which I've seen highly praised.  It deals with the horror of honor killings, but it's a family legend related by a relative passing it on to some friends.  The concept seems distant, just another story, instead of visceral.  I don't think the point of view worked for Anne Fine's story either, which is told by a teacher.

Keith Gray, Andrew Smith, Sophie McKenzie, and Mary Hooper's stories were all okay, although I wasn't big on Hooper's since it was historical fiction.  If you're a fan of one of these authors, it's probably worth picking up this anthology.  Only two stories were real duds for me, which is a good rate for a short story collection.  I think readers will appreciate the range of perspectives and experiences explored in LOSING IT.

Chaos Walking: The Movie meets Charlie Kaufman

Charlie Kaufman, the scriptwriter for Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, has been tapped to adapt THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO, the first book of Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy, for the big screen. While many young adult series have done well in theaters lately, their screen adaptations have played it fairly safe. Considering Ness didn't write a safe series, I'm hoping for an equally ambitious movie.

Or maybe I'm just hoping for Adaptation 2: Adapt Harder.

(If you haven't read the books, click on the covers. Hardcover copies of THE ASK AND THE ANSWER and MONSTERS OF MEN are currently on sale for $7.60 at Amazon.)

(via AV Club)