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?