Status Updates From More Than This

I know, I've barely even started, but I really like how the book started!
I've seen quite the perspective, and the way Patrick Ness writes in this way challenges me to think deeper about what the character is experiencing, and also makes it so vague that I have to read the next few pages to imagine what the MC was actually doing, which, for some reason, I like.
I've never read a book where death happens at the end.

At least he didn't have to struggle till the very end. His injuries helped end his suffering

TLDR

+Engaging for all 400+ pages
+even side characters got heart breaking backstories and whispers of color even if we don’t hear from them much or again
+gay
+nods to knowing exactly what reader is thinking
+found family babyyyyy
+I liked the ending, stayed in tone
-small repetitions could have been trimmed but I wasn’t bored so it’s only a half -

4.5* round to 5 since I went back to re-read

The topics of hope and existentialism woven into a cool mystery drove this book home for me and as I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time, I went ahead and re-read it 5 years later. And since hope is throughout, having a hopeful ending was so much more in-tone with this novel than having a set in stone happy or bittersweet or even mortal one.

On the topic of the abrupt ending (abrupt not b/c it wasn’t built up to or earned but in the cut-off), the author definitely set us up for expecting to not have many questions answered. Since we only experience the simulated life in flashbacks or dreams of the characters (or neck node touching) I think it was safe to assume from the second Seth laid out his plan that we were not going to see the other side of it.

Covers difficult topics but not in any overtly-philosophical way, it is definitely rooted in realism in the differing ways Regine and Tomasz respond to learning their stories.

Book kept me engaged and despite 400+ pages I really don’t have any more information than the characters. I know just about everything they do and that’s it (actually, I might know even less than Seth does). How could I not feel affection for Regine and Tomasz?

They prepare to send MC back in for 60 seconds as a test run and he has no idea what will happen but actually wants to find out

Who will take care of the rest of the coffins now? And did the Driver only save him once he pled for his life (would play into this is a purgatory acceptance trial for him, but then again he is dead set on wanting to come back to R and T so thematically defeats the purpose)

They will pull him out if anything bad happens and he’ll go under without the company liquid that makes you forget

Before they can do anything MC thinks if this is a story the villain will come back. Then the Driver pops out and slams T, he takes them all down pierces MC with his spare leg MC wishes to live. Driver heals him (maybe after his plea is the key to why?) T explodes Driver w the baton

MC was always searching for more and couldn’t see it. H offering friendship, his dad saying sorry, G tho unreachable now was clearly in love w him too

He plans to go back. Before, ppl went back and forth then when the world went to crap they stayed there permanently. He briefly thinks how these guardian angels he met may be preparing him to accept his death. Program in a program?

when he finds Regine she’s stuck in a loop of her death, he frees her and she is so thankful he chose to come. That was enough. Just when resigned to their fates T comes barreling in the van and crushes the Driver

H came over and confessed that Monica broke up w him and she found the photos cuz she was sleeping w G too. G didn’t want his friends to suffer and she liked him so much he gave her that

Driver knocks both boys out and takes Regine (why not all 3?)

Racing to the prison MC goes in and finds screen where he pauses her reconnection, the Driver is putting her back in minutes before her death, possibly to fix her death to be final not a wake up. Driver comes running to screen ignoring him so MC starts opening coffins so it has to fix them

His parents blamed him when it was the adult who left her children alone

Seth self-absorbed in his guilt when the protectors of his life failed

R’s protectors failed too. Her stepfather abused and pushed her down the stairs. That’s why she fights to protect Tomasz. As the Driver hid waiting for them goes for T she pushes in between them like the lady did for her. She goes down to the stun baton noooooo Regine :(

MC remembers Everything. But it’s too much to sift, his neck is blinking and he touches Tomasz and his blinks too then he sees his memory before he died

Maybe T and his mother made it to England but when everyone went online there wasn’t time to deport so they put them under making them think they never made the journey. Cruel

After sleeping w/o dreaming runs like hell to find bro He knows where he is. The cemetery

Regine and Tomasz are there trying to get him up as he comes to, but Driver makes it back and T shoots shotgun into its chest

MC is struggling with overlapping memories and his current vision, Driver gets up and they run out of the prison

Honestly, without Regine these boys would be sitting ducks. She really gets them moving when the time calls for it

Monica admits to leaking photos b/c she liked G first and the photos weren’t purely physical. They were love. And that hurt her more…. Ugh this silly silly girl

Regine gives him cryptic map back to their house while he sets off for the prison, Tomasz not knowing where he’s going

Hangar filled w thousands of similar coffins, he finds his parents in the director but not his brother. Alarm goes off, is hit w something

They escape and hide out. Regine thinks that their deaths in the virtual world are supposed to kill them in the real world but their injuries to the connection port disconnected them instead

MC wants to go to the prison, that’s where everyone else is where Tomasz woke up, where Regine (woke up in a house) went to find the lady who saved her life and found him instead

The Driver found his house. MC thinks the 2 kids showed up just when he was finally going to leave this place, past the borders of his little matrix. How convenient. (MC is pretty full of himself that he created this place lol) so he goes to the Driver knowing it won’t hurt him and it punches him square in the chest lmaooooo

He walks to the beach, folds his cloths and enters the water. Despite everything, he still fights to swim

He runs to the hill fleeing his memories and sees a black van driving

Before the Driver turns around, Regine and Tommy pull him into hiding and their fear is enough to convince MC

They all died before coming here and all hit the back of their heads in a very specific spot

MC think this is Hell. Alone, reliving memories, scrounging for unspoiled food. Hell indeed

Everything on other side of train tracks has burned down. End of the matrix?

Photos w Gundmund are leaked… Monica? His mom is pissed (bad timing Owen has severe medical bills) and his dad self medicating

G was forced to another hs and MC has to go to his dad’s college for faculty discounts. Their after-hs plans ruined

He sees footsteps on the stairs, thinking there’s someone else in the house… but they are his. He follows them to the attic where lay futuristic coffin whence he came, he plans breaks into neighbors house but no coffins

When 8, MC let a strange man into the house and his 4yo brother hasn’t been the same since being kidnapped and found. His parents blame him

Him and Gudmund had a secret relationship