Have you ever wanted to read Patrick Ness, but didn’t know where to start? Our work experience student (and Patrick Ness admirer) Joe Murray has some advice…

The Chaos Walking trilogy

This series is for those who like gripping action. The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book of the series and the most intense of Ness’s books in terms of plot. The next two books are The Ask and The Answer and Monsters of Men.

A series means readers get to spend a lot of time getting to know the characters and world of the story, giving them more depth. As the story develops, Ness uses this extra space to dig deep into its themes of morality and freedom. The action changes dramatically between the three books. The first book involves a desperate chase, the second describes an oppressive regime, and the third is all about a bloody and brutal war.

More Than This

More Than This is for readers who like mystery and ambiguity. The story is pieced together through the characters’ experiences and through the fragments of their memory that are slowly returning to them. Throughout the book, you learn about the character’s past and how they got to where they are.

This is definitely one of Ness’s most philosophical stories, and the hopeful ending says a lot about the choices we make and the fluidity of identity.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here

This is Ness at his most lighthearted. In some ways, The Rest of Us Just Live Here is a nice escape from his other books which are often quite harrowing. The book’s premise is quite humourous, detailing the lives of the bystanders of some other novel about magic and vampires in a high school (the titular ‘rest of us’). While the cool ‘indie kids’ are dealing with the strange blue beams of light and mysterious happenings, the protagonists of Ness’s book are dealing with their final days of school and the complex, sometimes awkward, relationships between them.

Despite me describing this book as ‘lighthearted’, The Rest of Us Just Live Here is certainly not shallow. Ness is as meaningful as ever as he emphasises the value of friendship and belonging.

A Monster Calls

Drawn from an idea by Siobhan Dowd with illustrations by Jim Kay

Drawn from an idea by the late award-winning children’s author Siobhan Dowd, A Monster Calls is Ness’s shortest book but loses none of its power for this reason. It’s a sad story that is emotional and challenging, showing how a young boy copes with loss. The book contains an element of fantasy too – over several nights, the young boy hears stories from the titular monster, a living yew tree, all the while leading up the boy having to face the most frightening monster of his own.

An important thing to note is that a film of A Monster Calls will soon be released in Australia, and this book needs to be read first in order to really appreciate the adaptation.

Release

In Release, Ness takes a much more in-depth focus, framing the whole story within a single day. At first glance, it seems derivative of some of his other novels, such as More Than This and The Rest of Us Just Live Here due to its themes of friendship and LGBT+ issues, but ultimately it is unique in its scope. By centring the novel on one character so intently and by holding back on the action, this story becomes more personal and relaxing than Ness’s other books.

A final note…

I haven’t yet read The Crane Wife but from experience – if you want interesting stories and powerful themes then you can’t go wrong with a Patrick Ness book.