[Review] More Than This by Patrick Ness

More Than This by Patrick Ness
Date Started: 6/25/14
Date Finished: 7/9/14
Publisher: Candlewick on Brilliance Audio
Publishing Date: Nov. 26, 2013
Format: audio, library
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

Synopsis 

From two-time Carnegie Medal winner Patrick Ness comes an enthralling and provocative new novel chronicling the life - or perhaps afterlife - of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world. A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighborhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust, and completely abandoned. What's going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonizing memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this might not be the hell he fears it to be, that there might be more than just this....

My Review

I picked up the audio version of this book because I've heard good things about Patrick Ness and about this book as well. This is the first story by Ness that I've read, though I do have The Knife of Never Letting Go on my shelves at home. I was excited to start listening to this book! They usually take me a while to get through because I generally only listen to them while driving, and though I travel often for work, its still not a lot of time to get through it. But I finally finished yesterday!

On to the book itself... I'm sad to say that I really didn't enjoy this story. I actually thought about stopping it after the first disc, but as I didn't have another audio book at the time, and I would be traveling about 6 hours the next week, I decided to push through. I couldn't connect with the characters and couldn't get into the story. I found it to be kind of boring and I really only looked forward to hearing about Seth's life before he died. To me, that was much more interesting than what happened after he died. 

I know many people really like this story; you can tell just be looking at the Goodreads rating and the reviews. I was really hoping to like it as well, but it just wasn't for me. I'm still planning to read The Knife of Never Letter Go by Ness, so I hope to like that one better.