Books › The rest of us just live here
The rest of us just live here
336 pages
A wry, tender love letter to the background characters of every epic fantasy, proving that just surviving high school is heroic enough.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting on the hood of a car with your best friends while a CGI apocalypse rages in the next town over. It is a steady, character-driven experience that brilliantly subverts YA tropes by focusing entirely on the normal kids. The narrative balances a wry, satirical edge with deep, earnest compassion for its characters' very real, very ordinary struggles. The prose is conversational and intimate, anchoring you in the protagonist's battles with anxiety and OCD while hilariously summarizing the epic fantasy plot happening just out of frame. It will delight readers who appreciate clever meta-fiction, tender coming-of-age stories, and the comforting realization that you don't have to be the Chosen One to have a life worth living.
- Mood
- quirky
- nostalgic
- anxious
- tender
- Tone
- wry
- satirical
- earnest
- compassionate
- self-aware
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the beauty of the ordinary · navigating mental illness · fear of growing up · enduring friendship · letting go
- The writing
- Conversational and deeply empathetic, punctuated by hilariously deadpan, satirical chapter summaries of the background apocalypse.
- The arc
- Moves from a state of anxious paralysis about the future to a quiet, profound acceptance of ordinary life and its everyday triumphs.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love clever meta-fiction and character-driven stories that validate the quiet struggles of everyday life over epic destinies.
Content notes
- OCD and anxiety representation
- eating disorders
- parental neglect
- background fantasy violence
About the book
What if you aren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you're like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week's end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.
Description from Open Library.
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