We all love our Chosen Ones. The boy who lived. The girl on fire. The first jumper. It was a wild phenomenon, as fans and readers enjoyed cheering for their heroes. However, with the amount of Chosen Ones we have encountered, one would wonder if there’s still a Chosen One, at all.
It’s a concept that continues to be present in many forms of literature – whether in printed word or digital media or deliberately stated or implied – and it'll most likely continue until the end of time. While there is nothing wrong with the Chosen Ones, it has become a generic trope that most readers, such as myself, are exhausted of reading about. (So, this is essentially the origin story of how I have fallen in love with anti-heroes.)
When The Rest of Us Just Live Here was first announced, I was instantly intrigued. A book deliberately not about Chosen Ones? Count me in. It was time for the rest of Hogwarts’ students, for the faceless victims of Panem, of the citizens of a revolutionized Chicago.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here was an interesting lovechild of light fantasy and young adult contemporary. Patrick Ness’ take on the Chosen One trope was creatively woven where our protagonists’ stories happen side-by-side whatever heroic journey the Chosen Ones – or as they are referred to, the “indie kids” – are on, where the latter was simply considered as a background matter.
Patrick Ness’ book was a satirical and even, parodic response to the trope of the Chosen Ones but what made it substantial were the seemingly ordinary characters that were just like the rest of us. The main protagonists’ Mikey, his sister Mel, Henna, Jared, and even new kid, Nathan and Mikey’s younger sister, Meredith, all have their own personal demons with themselves and the world. However, as Caitlin White stated it, The Rest of Us Just Live Here isn’t an “’issues’ book”. She insinuated that the characters themselves know so, reiterating it after the reader gets a look at some particular familial struggles:
“But all of this, this isn't the story I'm trying to tell. This is all past. This is the part of your life where it gets taken over by other people's stories and there's nothing you can do about it except hold on tight and hope you're still alive at the end to take up your own story again. So that's what we did. Me, Mel, and Meredith all moved on and we're the stories we're living now.”
Going on a tangent here: while I did just state how The Rest of Us Just Live Here was going beyond its characters having their issues, I would still like to commend Patrick Ness’ presentation of mental illness, in particular, OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. One of the main characters, Mikey, was diagnosed with it and I found his journey through this mental illness truly heart wrenching, especially as the book is told from his perspective. Honestly, I am not well-versed in mental illness in fictional literature (something which I really should change) but the portrayal of the hard reality of having OCD was very raw and grounded. I had understood deeply through Mikey – the frustrations, the compulsions – that until now, the single scene of his multiple repetition of hand washing until his hands were red and bleeding had stayed with me.
Continuing, The Rest of Us Just Live Here also brought to light struggles we, as the rest of us, entertain from day-to-day through our group of characters. Mikey and company only want to survive their Senior year, enjoy prom, and of course, graduate. (Being a Senior right now, this resonates deeply.) At the same time, there were these challenges of “friendship, family, changing and growing up, and” discovering your identity in this “complicated world” that they had to face. Juxtaposed to the very eventful and adventurous lives of the indie kids, The Rest of Us Just Live Here poke at the idea that living as the rest of us is infinitely more challenging than fighting against alien invaders. In White’s words, “[…] being the Chosen One is far more “normal” than just trying to exist as no one special in the world.” Being extraordinary in our own way as ordinary people is a tougher journey.
“Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life.”The Rest of Us Just Live Here, in its hilarity and realism, was obviously set to dispel the trope of the Chosen Ones. It successfully did so through complementing the overused cliche in making substantial ordinary characters, instead of merely mocking it.
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Breaking Glass Ceilings is a collaboration with Julienne of Vasari Pages. So make sure to also check hers out!
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