Some of you may know that I love Patrick Ness’s books. I think I should make that clear before we continue. You should all check out his Chaos Walking trilogy as well as The Rest of Us Just Live Here, which are my personal favourites.

Saying all this though, I wasn’t totally sure what to make of Release. In fact, I’m not sure I fully understood what I was supposed to take away from it at the end.

I loved all the parts with Adam in. Ness excels at characters. They are all so real, and the things he says are so true that sometimes it hurts. His work is always so honest and beautiful, and that’s exactly what it was like to read Adam’s sections. Angela, Adam’s best friend, is wonderful. I could’ve read about her all day long.

The issue I had was with the ‘ghost’ girl. I wasn’t sure what her sections were adding, and I wasn’t sure what was going on in her plot line. I found that I read over her sections as fast as possible because I wanted to hear more about Adam, who I grew very attached to over the course of the book.

Thankfully, the ghost girl sections were a lot shorter than Adam’s. It seemed like she was a compliment to the overall story, but I can’t help but feel as though she could’ve been taken out. But as I know and love Patrick Ness’s writing, I’m sure I’ve missed something about it.

Don’t get me wrong, the book was fabulous. I got so involved I could hardly put it down.

The pace is excellent. I kept turning pages, wanting to know what was going to happen next. The entire book takes place over just one day, and I think that takes real skill to achieve. To get to know these characters and love them so much in just one day is incredible.

First posted on Movellas: http://www.movellas.com/blog/show/201708161306191139/review-of-patrick-nesss-book-release