More Than This

by Patrick Ness Narrated by Nick Podehl

Overview

From the acclaimed author of the Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls comes one of the most provocative teen novels of our time.

A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is this possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? The street seems familiar, but everything is abandoned, overgrown, covered in dust.

What's going on? Is it real? Or has he woken up in his own personal hell? Seth begins to search for answers, hoping desperately that there must be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife....

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Seth Wearing, age 16, dies in the opening pages of this complex, ambitious novel from Ness (A Monster Calls) and, arguably, that isn’t the worst thing that happens to him. After drowning, Seth awakens in the suburban London neighborhood where he lived before his family relocated to the Pacific Northwest. The old neighborhood is now a dust-covered ruin; there is no noise, no electricity, and, at first, not another soul around. Is this hell? A tortured dream? Seth’s search for understanding requires Ness to move between the unsettling present and Seth’s past, slowly revealing his sad childhood, his awful mother, and the bright spot in his young life—his relationship with schoolmate Gudmund. When even that romance ended in sorrow, Seth grasped for a reason to live. The Matrix-like science fiction elements of the story are somewhat fuzzy, and even the characters continually question the logic of the circumstances they are stuck in. But Ness’s exploration of big questions—specifically Seth’s yearning to find out if life will ever offer more than the rotten hand he’s been dealt—will provide solace for the right readers. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

This haunting and consistently surprising novel raises deep questions about what it means to be alive, but it doesn’t try to console readers with easy or pat answers. ... . A delicate balance between dystopian survival and philosophical grappling means that many different kinds of readers should appreciate the story.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

Ness brilliantly plays with contrasts: life and death, privacy and exposure, guilt and innocence. In characteristic style, the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy delves into the stuff of nightmares for an existential exploration of the human psyche.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Compulsively readable... It is a very compelling, multidimensional story.
—Library Media Connection

Ness’ knack for cliff-hangers, honed in the Chaos Walking series, remains strong, while the spare, gradual, anytime, anyplace quality of the story recalls A Monster Calls... Ness has crafted something stark and uncompromising.
—Booklist

This complex, genrebending book opens with Seth’s violent drowning death at sea, described in such spare but devastating detail that readers may feel themselves gasping for a breath as Seth draws his last. ... Ness subverts familiar sci-fi/survival tropes and storytelling conventions, leaving readers with an ambiguous ending... The thematic explorations of the nature of reality and the afterlife offer some heady discussion fodder, while the nail-biting tension and high-stakes action sequences make this an easy sell to the legions of dystopia fans as well.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Ness leads readers on an adventure into a world that astounds and amazes. ... Ness captures the mind of a teenager perfectly. It is a fast-paced journey that even reluctant readers will pursue...
—VOYA

Ness is not only a good storyteller but an interesting prose stylist, and his latest effort is as provocative as ever.
—The Horn Book

Books are often described as ‘mind-blowing,’ but this is one of the few books in which, while reading it, I have exclaimed aloud, ‘Oh. My. God.’ on multiple occasions. I won’t tell you anything else about it. Just read it.
—John Green

It is a gorgeous story with masterful pacing and unforgettable passages.
—The Boston Globe

At times, More Than This is like a literary experiment that only by the grace and dedication of its creator resulted in a novel proper, but in the hands of a poised, perfectionist prose-smith like Patrick Ness, it’s rarely less than life-affirming. ... The author’s newest novel is riveting, edge-of-your-reading-seat stuff from beginning to end.
—Tor.com

Artsy, creepy, and full of psychological suspense... Ness specializes in writing post-apocalyptic worlds where things are rarely as they seem. ... The dizzying ending brings the characters to the narrow edge between inevitable outcomes and hope for second chances — and challenges readers to form their own conclusions.
—BookPage

[A] YA game-changer. It's provocative and philosophical, sweet and darkly funny, and destined to be discussed and debated. And there's not a vampire or a zombie lurking anywhere in its dystopian landscape.
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

School Library Journal - Audio

06/01/2014
Gr 10 Up—Seth remembers dying. His remembers splitting his head on the rocks and drowning. But now he is awake again, naked and lost in his old home in England. Seth wanders the empty, desolate streets of town, eating spoiled food, looking for any signs of life, finally considering he may very well be in his own personal hell. When he attempts to sleep, his dreams are filled with vivid memories of despair. The memories are so terrible, in fact, that he begins to prefer this new world over the dreams, awful as it is. He's thinking about trying to end it all when he hears a car engine roar to life. Nick Podehl's expert narration portrays the characters' voices believably and with emotion. A few sexual situations and mild language make this appropriate for slightly older teens. Purchase where demand for dystopian fiction is high and Ness ("Chaos Walking" series) has a following. Listeners will be clamoring for a sequel.—Amanda Schiavulli, Finger Lakes Library System, NY

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—This haunting and consistently surprising novel raises deep questions about what it means to be alive, but it doesn't try to console readers with easy or pat answers. As the story opens, teenage Seth is experiencing his own death in painful detail. In the next chapter, he wakes up physically weak, covered in bandages and strange wounds, and wonders if he is in Hell or the future or somewhere else entirely. As he tries to survive in and make sense of his strange yet familiar surroundings, he is plagued by intense flashbacks of his life before he died: his guilt over the tragedy that befell his little brother, his burgeoning romance with another boy in his small town, and the events that led to his (dubious) death. Upon discovering two other young people in the blighted place he's landed, Seth begins to learn the Matrix-like truth about what has happened to the rest of humanity, how he can escape, and whether he even wants to. The intense themes in this novel make it more appropriate for older teens, but the language and sexual scenarios are clear, relevant, and neither graphic or gratuitous. A delicate balance between dystopian survival and philosophical grappling means that many different kinds of readers should appreciate the story.—Kyle Lukoff, Corlears School, New York City

JANUARY 2014 - AudioFile

Nick Podehl’s narration energizes this cerebral story of the afterlife. The story begins with Seth’s death and subsequent awakening in a familiar, yet deserted, neighborhood where his worst memories reside. Much of the story takes place with Seth as the only character, although flashbacks to his past allow Podehl to explore more characters. He expertly adds dimension to the dialogue—which takes place in Seth’s head. He’s especially adept at delivering the sarcasm of Seth’s friends, particularly that of his friend Monica. Overall, Podehl captures Seth’s emotions as he tries to understand his experiences before and after his death. E.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2013-09-01
Seth, not yet 17, walks into the Pacific Ocean and ends his life. Or does he? He wakes, groggy, in front of the house in England where he spent his childhood, before his little brother, Owen, was kidnapped and the family moved to America. He spends days in a dust-covered, desolate landscape scavenging for food in empty stores, imagining that he's in a "hell built exactly for him." His dreams are filled with vivid memories of his life: his romance with a boy named Gudmund, a photo that's gone viral, and farther back, his inability to keep Owen safe. Seth is rescued by a girl named Regine and Tomasz, a younger, Polish boy, from pursuit by a silent, helmeted figure they call the Driver. Past and present collide as Seth struggles to determine what's real and what isn't, whether circumstances are all of his own doing. He faces doorways everywhere, with genuine death seemingly just beyond, but there are hints of something even more sinister going on. There are no easy answers either for Seth or readers. With a nod to Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Ness brilliantly plays with contrasts: life and death, privacy and exposure, guilt and innocence. In characteristic style, the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy delves into the stuff of nightmares for an existential exploration of the human psyche. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169786743
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	11/26/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Here is the boy, drowning.
   In these last moments, it’s not the water that’s finally done for him; it’s the cold. It has bled all the energy from his body and contracted his muscles into a painful uselessness, no matter how much he fights to keep himself above the surface. He is strong, and young, nearly seventeen, but the wintry waves keep coming, each one seemingly larger than the last. They spin him round, topple him over, force him deeper down and down. Even when he can catch his breath in the few terrified seconds he manages to push his face into the air, he is shaking so badly he can barely get half a lungful before he’s under again. It isn’t enough, grows less each time, and he feels a terrible yearning in his chest as he aches, fruitlessly, for more.
   He is in full panic now. He knows he’s drifted just slightly too far from shore to make it back, the icy tide pulling him out farther and farther with every wave, pushing him toward the rocks that make this bit of coast so treacherous. He also knows there is no one who’ll notice he’s gone in time, no one who’ll raise the alarm before the water defeats him. He won’t be saved by chance, either. There are no beachcombers or tourists to dive in from the shoreline to save him, not this time of year, not in these freezing temperatures.
   It is too late for him.
   He will die.
   And he will die alone.
   The sudden, gasping horror of knowing this makes him panic even more. He tries again to break the surface, not daring to think that it might be his last time, not daring to think much at all. He forces his legs to kick, forces his arms to heave himself upward, to at least get his body the right way round, to try and grasp another breath just inches away­ –
   But the current is too strong. It allows him tantalizingly near the surface but spins him upside down before he can get there, dragging him closer to the rocks.
   The waves toy with him as he tries again.
   And fails.
   Then, without warning, the game the sea seems to have been playing, the cruel game of keeping him just alive enough to think he might make it, that game seems to be over.
   The current surges, slamming him into the killingly hard rocks. His right shoulder blade snaps in two so loudly he can hear the crack, even underwater, even in this rush of tide. The mindless intensity of the pain is so great that he calls out, his mouth instantly filling with freezing, briny seawater. He coughs against it, but only drags more into his lungs. He curves into the pain of his shoulder, blinded by it, paralyzed by its intensity. He is unable to even try and swim now, unable to brace himself as the waves turn him over once more.
  Please, is all he thinks. Just the one word, echoing through his head.
 Please.
   The current grips him a final time. It rears back as if to throw him, and it dashes him headfirst into the rocks. He slams into them with the full, furious weight of an angry ocean behind him. He is unable to even raise his hands to try and soften the blow.
   The impact is just behind his left ear. It fractures his skull, splintering it into his brain, the force of it also crushing his third and fourth vertebrae, severing both his cerebral artery and his spinal cord, an injury from which there is no return, no recovery. No chance.
   He dies.
 
Part 1
 
Chapter 1
 
The first moments after the boy’s death pass for him in a confused and weighty blur. He is dimly aware of pain, but mostly of a tremendous fatigue, as if he has been covered in layer upon layer of impossibly heavy blankets. He struggles against them, blindly, his thrashing increasing as he panics (again) at the invisible ropes that seem to bind him.
   His mind isn’t clear. It races and throbs like the worst kind of fever, and he is unaware of even thinking. It’s more some kind of wild, dying instinct, a terror of what’s to come, a terror of what’s happened.
   A terror of his death.
   As if he can still struggle against it, still outrun it.
   He even has a distant sensation of momentum, his body continuing its fight against the waves even though that fight has already been lost. He feels a sudden rushing, a surge of terror hurtling him forward, forward, forward, but he must be free of his body somehow because his shoulder no longer hurts as he struggles blindly through the dark, unable to feel anything, it seems, except a terrified urgency to move –
   And then there is a coolness on his face. Almost as of a breeze, though such a thing seems impossible for so many reasons. It’s this coolness that causes his consciousness – His soul? His spirit? Who’s to say? – to pause in its fevered spin.
   For an instant, he is still.
   There’s a change in the murk before his eyes. A lightness. A lightness he can enter, somehow, and he can feel himself leaning toward it, his body – so weak, so nearly incapable beneath him – reaching for the growing light.
   He falls. Falls onto solidity. The coolness rises from it, and he allows himself to sink into it, let it envelop him.
   He is still. He gives up his struggle. He lets oblivion overtake him.

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