More Than This by Patrick Ness

Seth is almost seventeen when he drowns and dies. Then he wakes up, he's naked but alive and at his old childhood home in England, there's no on else around and everything is covered in dust. What is going on? Has he died and this is the afterlife or is there more to life than he had always presumed? Every time Seth sleeps memories come back to him so as well as finding out what's happening to him now we also gradually learn more and more about his life from before.

This book grabbed hold of me straight away, I can't recall reading anything like it and I loved the characters, particularly Tomasz. There are so many twists and turns I couldn't guess what was going to happen next or where the story was going. This is a very difficult book to review without giving too much of the story away, I haven't read any of the author's other books so wasn't sure what to expect especially as it's a YA novel but I was very impressed with his writing and it didn't feel as though I was reading a book aimed at teenagers. At first I was a little disappointed with the ending but thinking about it now I'm not sure how else the author could have finished it.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Book Blurb:

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.