First, Seth dies. Then he wakes up, alone in a world filled with familiar houses and streets, yet devoid of humans. As he struggles to find food and water in this strange setting, he also wonders where he is. He definitely remembers dying, and naturally assumes that he is either in hell or some sort of purgatory. As his situation grows stranger and he regains more of his memories, however, Seth must come to terms with the fact that he, nor anyone else, really know where they are. 

More Than This

                On a frigid winter night off the coast of a Washington beach, a seventeen-year-old boy drowns, his head dashed into a stretch of unforgiving rock just off the shoreline, fracturing his skull and severing his spinal cord.  There is no hope, no chance of survival.  The boy dies.  His life is over.  Finished.  Ended.

                Or is it?

More Than This, by Patrick Ness begins with a very vivid description of Seth's suicide death by drowning. When he wakes up, he has no injuries and seems to be in a new world. Where is he? In Hell, an afterlife of some sort? Everything around him is covered in dust and nobody else is around. The beginning of the book is strictly inner monologue with plenty of flashbacks to his old life where Ness addresses a lot if issues, including, but not limited to; teen suicide, homosexual acceptance, forgiveness, guilt, love and the nature of reality itself.