“The Chosen One” is a literary trope, often seen in YA fiction and coming-of-age stories, in which the protagonist is figured as the inevitable hero of the story. Sometimes this predestination comes in the form of a prophecy (as in the Harry Potter series) or happens on account of the protagonist’s lineage (as in the case of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars). When a writer engages this trope, it often creates a sense of narrative certainty: Because the protagonist’s fate is inextricably connected to the resolutions of the narrative’s tensions, the reader knows that the protagonist will persist through to the story’s climax and be an active agent in the resolution of the story’s conflicts.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here very deliberately engages and subverts “The Chosen One” trope. Mikey and his friends attend a high school populated by Chosen Ones whom Mikey refers to as “the indie kids.” The indie kids are off fighting battles that the other high schoolers know very little about—in recent years, they’ve staved off a vampire invasion and, as the novel progresses, they deal with an incursion of otherworldly beings called The Immortals.