Release (Release)

by Patrick Ness

The most personal and tender novel yet from Patrick Ness, the twice Carnegie Medal-winning author of A Monster Calls.

The most personal and tender novel yet from Patrick Ness, the twice Carnegie Medal-winning author of A Monster Calls. It's Saturday, it's summer and, although he doesn't know it yet, everything in Adam Thorn's life is going to fall apart. But maybe, just maybe, he'll find freedom from the release. Time is running out though, because way across town, a ghost has risen from the lake... This uplifting coming-of-age novel will remind you what it's like to fall in love.

• ISBN10: 1406331171
• ISBN13: 9781406331172
• Publish Date: 4 May 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 19 April 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Walker Books Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

I love Patrick Ness, which is why I checked this book out, despite not enjoying one of the books this one is inspired by (Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf)--and not being familiar with the other (Forever ... by Judy Blume). I definitely enjoyed this more than Mrs. Dalloway, but I think it might be one of my least favorite Ness novels.

Book content warnings:
sexual harassment
in-book homophobia
domestic abuse (emotional/manipulative)

Release takes place in a single day, probably one of the most emotionally challenging days of Adam Thorn's life. He's the (closeted) gay son of a conservative preacher in a small town ... kind of a nightmare. On top of that, he has to go to his ex's going-away party (who he's not completely over), later that night, fight with his feelings for his current boyfriend (is this real? or do I want to want to love him more than I actually love him? etc.), and deal with sexual harassment from his boss at work.

There's also a second story going on. A girl (who was murdered at the same lake Adam's ex's going-away party is taking place at) has been resurrected with the spirit of a non-specific deity called the Queen. The girl is on a journey to find her murderer and ... do something. But apparently disturbing the Queen can have disastrous consequences on the world.

If these stories sound a bit disjointed, they kind of read that way too. They eventually do come together at the end, but I'm still not sure what the Queen's presence really was or who she is or why she existed in the first place.

Adam's story, though, is beautiful. And incredibly relatable. Patrick Ness always has that way of writing stories that brings out a real, genuine voice, and it shines here too. I just wish there was more of it and less of the Queen business -- or maybe I just didn't understand it and where the two stories intersected.

[Bianca]

Who cared if he’d grow out of it? That didn’t make it any less true in those painful and euphoric days when it was happening. The truth was always now, even if you were young. Especially if you were young.

— A heartbreaking and powerful read about letting go of the things tying us down. Would’ve rated this 5 stars, but the side story really put me off.

[ross91]

DNF at 68%
This book was not for me.

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

Initial thoughts: The opening chapter gave me pause for the extent to which it borrowed from the beginnings of Mrs Dalloway. You see, I didn't like that classic very much. I gave it 0.5 stars, although I could see what Virginia Woolf had meant to accomplish.

My worries were soon forgotten as Release was built on a similar framework but was a distinctly Patrick Ness book. What do I mean by that? The style, the vision, and the approach to storytelling were his — whimsical, raw, relatable and parts that felt just a little out of reach. They required the reader to work at even remotely grasping the point of everything.

When that "Aha!" moment came to me, I had to put down the book to revisit in my mind all that I had read, to make sense of the connections. With two stories running parallel — one contemporary, one paranormal — it did seem at first like two random books had been mashed together, not even necessarily of the same author.

When you think about it, that's life. We live our own, not paying much attention to strangers' lives and when we do, they can seem kind of like a fog. However, connected to every place, there are hundreds and thousands of lives and stories. Patrick Ness presented two that beyond a shared locale had no direct links, yet were remarkably intertwined in direction and in emotions.

As much as I'm struck by my love for Release, I have to hold back on 5 stars for this reason: the secondary plot meandered so much at times, that instead of being pulled into the dreamy atmosphere, I was pulled out of the primary plot. The connections only started to make sense in the second half of the book, which made the first half overly tedious to read and stay connected to.

In the end though, things came heart achingly full circle, and that in the span of a single day in the life of Adam Thorn.

[justine_manzano]

Patrick Ness delivers another engaging and relatable read with Release, a book I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of during BookCon. The story has what amounts to two storylines. One follows Adam, a boy who is struggling with his very religious parents, because he is gay and his parents aren't even disapproving. They're actively ignoring it. The other follows an otherworldly spirit that has found herself tangled with the ghost of a dead girl from Adam's town.

Ness does a wonderful job of taking us through the day Adam's life changes, a roller coaster of emotions that leaves Adam's world in an uproar. We feel with him, fear with him, anger with him, love with him. Adam is a likeable character, even in his mistakes. We want him to see his way through his trials. His supporting characters are either lovable or horrifying, in a way that we all know from our every day lives. Adam is dealing with real world issues, and in that, dealing with real people with real challenges.

The spirit is a bit more difficult to nail down, for her entire quest is an unraveling mystery. And it is the fact of this diverging storyline, while they come together in an interesting way, that caused me to knock this book down to four stars. In such a relatable story, this paranormal side story feels a bit out of place.

Despite this, Ness' prose is always beautiful, and the story construction and flow of the storyline will keep you reading for hours. This is a must-read.

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

3.5*

There were parts of this book that I loved and found so, so important. And then there was a part that I kind of found... unnecessary maybe? But most definitely this was much more good than not. 

I loved Adam's story. Well, I didn't love it, because it was all so damn unfair to Adam. His family was wholly unsupportive of him because of his sexuality. While they all behave like a bunch of asshats, Adam's father is the asshattiest of the bunch. And he uses his conservative religion as an excuse to be cruel to his son. So yeah, to say I felt for Adam is an understatement. He's at such a tumultuous time in life, there are changes happening all around him (being vague on purpose!) and the people he should be able to count on are simply not there for him. The thing is, this is heartbreakingly real- Adam is not the only young person who will go through this, sadly. Frankly, this made Adam's story all the more devastating and important. 

But Adam does have people in his life who are awesome! He has a best friend who is there for him, and I love their relationship! And he has a complicated love life that reads as so, so realistic. He's struggling to get over past loves, figuring out his feelings for current ones. Another aspect of this book that I loved: it's incredibly sex-positive. 

The one thing I wasn't a fan of? There are chapters throughout the book that focus on... some kind of supernatural entity. (Again, being vague purposely.) I just never understood the point of these characters or chapters? Even after the book was finished, I was left wondering why they were in the story at all. To me, it took away from Adam's story more than it added to it. 

Bottom Line: A fabulous story about a young gay man who is trying to navigate a time of upheaval in his life without the support of the people who are supposed to be in his corner. It's heartbreaking at times, but also uplifting, and absolutely a book worth reading. I won't blame you if you skip the random chapters, though. ;) 

*Copy provided for review

[Stephanie]

Amazing - classic, wonderful, beautifully-written Ness. While the additional, "fantastical" story felt disjointed at times and loosely tied in, the parts with Adam (70% of the story) were touching, moving, and heartbreaking all at once. Loved it.

[Kelly]

Adam Thorn is sensitive, compassionate, beautiful, complicated. His grief is palpable, poignant and often confrontational. The Thorn family believe in the capacity of faith. To rehabilitate and to offer judgement especially concerning Adam's sexuality. Emotionally depleted after his relationship dissolved, Adam is navigating the parameters of a new relationship, desperate to find love once more.

Adam identifies as gay, his father using his faith to thinly veil his homophobic beliefs and whilst his sexuality isn't acknowledged categorically, he is often discussed as being dishonourable and needing to rediscover his own faith. Adam is nursing the heartbreak of first love while trying to commit to a new relationship. Adam's narration was wonderful, profound, often poignant and takes place over the span of a single day. Throughout his narration, Adam questions his own faith by being in a same sex relationship and when reaching out his evangelist father, he is ridiculed and dismissed.

Release touches on issues such as homophobia, substance abuse, manslaughter, sexual assault and the religion verses sexuality contention. Courageously and compassionately. The incorporation of sexual relationships was wonderful, a mature inclusion rarely seen in young adult novels accentuating same sex relationships.

The emphasis of Release is familiar relationships and in particular, the relationship Adam shares with his father. LGBTQIA teens and adult readers as an extension may find these particular passages confronting as it explores homophobia and erasure. Adam's family is homophobic, expressing the view that gay love is fraudulent.

It's not real love. Everybody's convinced themselves that it is, but it isn't. And it never will be.

Angela is a tremendous support to Adam, compassionate and maternal. Angela's adoptive family are wonderfully inclusive of her Korean ancestry, supporting Angela who identifies as bisexual and offering sanctuary to Adam.

The magical realism elements of Release were enchantingly lyrical, perplexing and synonymous within Patrick Ness narrations. A Queen infused with the spirit of a young women, dying from asphyxiation by her narcotic effected partner. Her companion is an anxious Faun. The two narratives converge and although peculiar and lyrically enchanting, the significance was nonsensical other than two characters seeking release.

Patrick Ness is a magnificent author and Release is a tender and compassionate read, confronting and captivating until the final page.