Review: Release

Release by Patrick Ness
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: September 19th, 2017
Source: Edelweiss
Date Read: 7/23/17 to 7/27/17
288 pages

Adam Thorn doesn’t know it yet, but today will change his life.

Between his religious family, a deeply unpleasant ultimatum from his boss, and his own unrequited love for his sort-of ex, Enzo, it seems as though Adam’s life is falling apart. At least he has two people to keep him sane: his new boyfriend (he does love Linus, doesn’t he?) and his best friend, Angela.

But all day long, old memories and new heartaches come crashing together, throwing Adam’s life into chaos. The bindings of his world are coming untied one by one; yet in spite of everything he has to let go, he may also find freedom in the release.

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I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Quotes taken from ARC may or may not be in the published edition.

I’m kind of not sure what I want to rate this. After talking with Shannon, I realized that I didn’t like this as much as I thought I did? For one, I'm not even sure what to say about this since I had no strong feelings about Release. But at the same time, I’m grateful that it was a quick read.

Release is a story about Adam trying to find “his release” (and there’s the title!), as he has so much pent up angst and overall frustration over…life in general. Because yeah, his life isn't exactly the best. First off, his family is super religious and has "a hard time" loving him as their gay son. Second, his gross supervisor is threatening to fire him, unless Adam agrees to sleep with him. And lastly, Adam doesn’t know if he truly loves his current boyfriend, Linus. This obviously ends up affecting their relationship, as Adam continuously thinks and reflects back on his ex. And of course, as this is the time where high school is about to come to an end and college is just around the corner, people are leaving his life.

So as simple as this all sounds, it's actually not quite that simple.

The chapters in between Adam’s story are a bit...cryptic? And in no direct relation to Adam’s, really. It reminds me of the author's other book, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, where the alternating chapters tell a new story. In this case, I didn't quite fully understand what was going on. It was telling the story of a murdered girl from the same hometown, yet the two stories didn't really connect. However, the overarching theme was definitely still present, and still tied in with the whole "release" theme going on. Though I say this, I found these chapters a bit unnecessary, and as I said before, confusing.

Other than that, I don't have much else to say. I really enjoyed this, yet I feel like I’ve read this same type of story before? I think I just have such high expectations for anything Patrick Ness writes, and this fell a bit below them.