Book Review: Release

After having such a good experience reading through Patrick Ness' prior work I decided to pick up another story of his. Release is a story which follows two central characters in a small american town. One of these characters is 17 year old Adam Thorn, who is facing a coming of age situation which relates to his sexual identity. Coming from a family of devoted Christians, Adam has faced a upbringing of constant pressure and expectation which ties into his personal journey to face the reality of who he is in an environment which is out to constantly oppress him. The other central character is a dead girl, who's ghost has risen to walk through the path that lead to her untimely demise. While these stories exist separate to one another, there is an overarching theme which links these two characters together somewhat which is reflected more distinctly by the end.

As there are two distinct narratives occurring throughout this book, it feels fair to review them individually. It feels like the main plot belongs to Adam and his journey to define a potential future in the wake of coming to terms with his sexuality. There's a subtle and compelling setup behind Adam's story throughout the book. I like how his character is written in a way to be smart yet notably vulnerable. Patrick Ness seems to have a knack for writing young adult characters which actually feel rather realistic and relatable. While his journey throughout the story isn't too large in the scale of things, it's the subtle and emotional core of Adam's journey in finding himself that makes for an enjoyable experience to work through. It's often through the interactions Adam has with the variety of characters in his story that you get a clear reflection of his personal challenges too.

The other narrative which follows the ghost of a dead girl doesn't feel nearly as compelling in my opinion. I appreciate it's meant to be structured in a way that feels otherworldly, so the formatting and writing speaks more vaguely about the events unfolding. This however seems to detriment this storyline more than anything. It's a sad story which is layered in so much confusion that the core emotional impact it's trying to draw from you isn't achieved nearly as easily. as it was in Adam's story. I get what Ness was out to do here, he was trying to establish two distinct narratives which differed in both style and tone to help give you two avenues to follow the book through. The issue is the formatting and confusing plot make this side of the book a lot harder to get invested in compared to the other.

Release for the most part is a competent and emotional story about finding yourself. I can only imagine how much this story might help kids going through similar situations in their life. Like with A Monster Calls I can tell Ness was trying to tell a mature story in conjunction with supernatural themes but I honestly feel it hinders it more than benefits it in this story's case. There's still a lot here to appreciate though and it's a quick enough read to not feel like it's wasting it's page count to convey the compelling themes and concepts of the narrative for the most part.