The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.
We all know about the chosen ones—those special kids with the powers and the destinies and the stories that they star in as heroes. But what about all of those other people—the rest of us, who aren’t involved in a dramatic path laid down by twists of fate, the ones hovering at the edges, pretty much left out of everything?
What about Mikey Mitchell? Mikey, who just wants to graduate and leave his little town before something else happens, something worse than the undead or those soul-eating ghosts or the epidemic of vampires? Mikey, who wants to spend time with his little sister Meredith and maybe work up the courage to ask out his longtime friend Henna Silvennoinen. Mikey, who’s trying to finish his senior year with his best friends as normally as possible, before someone else dies or blows up the high school.
Again.
Not shying away from illnesses of both the mind and body, this book raises all the right questions about choosing your family, finding yourself, and those problems bigger and more personal than the latest apocalypse. This original twist of a story reminds us that there are many different types of extraordinary, and you don’t have to be “the chosen one” to be great.