More than this?

MORE THAN THIS by Patrick Ness. Candlewick Press, September 2013.

As this novel opens, our main characters, Seth is struggling against a vicious undertow in the ocean. He has been battered and slammed by the fierce waves. Finally, he is crashed against the rocks. One thrust breaks his shoulder. The next ends his life with a crushing blow to the skull. How can this story go forward, you might well ask? And that is the million dollar question.

Thankfully, Ness has the answer. It is one that will take readers on quite a wild ride as Seth finds himself alone (at least he thinks he is alone at first) in his old neighborhood, at his old home, one that holds too many painful memories. Where has everyone gone? Why have they simply disappeared? And the biggest question of them all: how could Seth have possibly survived the crushing blow against those ocean rocks?

As Seth seeks his own answers, Ness begins slowly to reveal the truth behind all of the mysteries, a truth this is, in and of itself, a mystery as well. Readers will be compelled to continue forward with Seth to try to reconstruct what has happened and what, exactly, is happening right now. Questions of life and death, truth and fiction, reality and unreality are at the heart of this remarkable story.