Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Candlewick (2014), Edition: 2nd ed., 512 pages
Description
Pursued by power-hungry Prentiss and mad minister Aaron, young Todd and Viola set out across New World searching for answers about his colony's true past and seeking a way to warn the ship bringing hopeful settlers from Old World.
Media reviews
User reviews
LibraryThing member snat
In a world where we're bombarded with technology, our senses are often overwhelmed by the amount of noise in the world and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find true quiet anymore (especially since most of us just plug into our computer or iPod as soon as it is quiet). A constant stream of
Inventive and unlike anything I've ever read, The Knife of Never Letting Go is billed as a young adult dystopian but there's very little that's young adult about it other than a 13 year old protagonist. In fact, a lot of the language is violent, graphic, and brutal by young adult standards, but it has to be to capture the world that has been created by Ness.
Todd Hewitt is only days away from becoming a man by Prentisstown standards. Prentisstown is a town on New World, a planet that is being "settled" by the people of earth. What's unusual about Prentisstown, though, is that it's a town that consists entirely of men. The women were killed twelve years earlier when the Spackle, the indigenous alien race, utilized germ warfare in an attempt to win the war against the pioneers. The men, however, were not entirely immune to this germ. Instead of killing them, it made every man's inner-thoughts (both verbal and visual) visible to those around him. There are no secrets in the Noise. As a means of coping with the noise, some men turn to drink, others attempt to run away, and some kill themselves. Life here is bleak under the totalitarian rule of Mayor Prentiss and the bizarre radical teachings of the holy man, Aaron. As far as Todd knows, Prentisstown is the only place on the planet.
As Todd nears his 13th birthday, he finds something in the swamp that shouldn't exist--silence. Shortly after discovering this peculiarity and unable to find its source, he's forced to flee Prentisstown and go on the run with only his dog, a knapsack of supplies, a hunting knife, and a book written to him by his mother. To tell you the how and why of all of this would be to spoil it as it's the suspense that motivates the entire novel. Todd struggles for survival and begins to unravel the lies that he's been told his entire life. During his journey, he discovers the truth about New World and about Prentisstown.
The novel is told in first person stream of consciousness, which really works because it's like we as readers are able to "hear" Todd's Noise just as the other inhabitants of Prentisstown would. It also means that we learn as Todd learns and, as his mind shies away to avoid truths that he can't yet accept, information is sometimes withheld from us. In addition, some of the words are written in dialect to help better capture how Todd sounds. There are some unusual narrative techniques used throughout, such as a different font being used to indicate the Noise of different individuals and animals (that's right--even animals have Noise; I particularly enjoyed the depiction of Todd's dog Manchee) as Todd encounters them. Instead of finding them gimmicky, I thought it was a very effective way of visually demonstrating the intrusion of other people's thoughts into one's own.
In some ways, the novel reminded me of the television series Firefly, but only in that these space travelers are the new pioneers. While they have a lot of new technology, the struggle for survival is a very real one and never certain. The novel ends with one hell of a cliffhanger and I find myself for the first time in a long time wanting to dive right into the second novel of the series.
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noise and images feed us information, prod us toward rampant consumerism, and entertain us. I've become increasingly aware that many of my students seem uncomfortable with simple quiet--always wanting some sort of noise to help them concentrate and focus. It's sad that our world has become one in which quiet is such a rare and undervalued commodity. And that, according to Patrick Ness, was the inspiration for The Knife of Never Letting Go.Inventive and unlike anything I've ever read, The Knife of Never Letting Go is billed as a young adult dystopian but there's very little that's young adult about it other than a 13 year old protagonist. In fact, a lot of the language is violent, graphic, and brutal by young adult standards, but it has to be to capture the world that has been created by Ness.
Todd Hewitt is only days away from becoming a man by Prentisstown standards. Prentisstown is a town on New World, a planet that is being "settled" by the people of earth. What's unusual about Prentisstown, though, is that it's a town that consists entirely of men. The women were killed twelve years earlier when the Spackle, the indigenous alien race, utilized germ warfare in an attempt to win the war against the pioneers. The men, however, were not entirely immune to this germ. Instead of killing them, it made every man's inner-thoughts (both verbal and visual) visible to those around him. There are no secrets in the Noise. As a means of coping with the noise, some men turn to drink, others attempt to run away, and some kill themselves. Life here is bleak under the totalitarian rule of Mayor Prentiss and the bizarre radical teachings of the holy man, Aaron. As far as Todd knows, Prentisstown is the only place on the planet.
As Todd nears his 13th birthday, he finds something in the swamp that shouldn't exist--silence. Shortly after discovering this peculiarity and unable to find its source, he's forced to flee Prentisstown and go on the run with only his dog, a knapsack of supplies, a hunting knife, and a book written to him by his mother. To tell you the how and why of all of this would be to spoil it as it's the suspense that motivates the entire novel. Todd struggles for survival and begins to unravel the lies that he's been told his entire life. During his journey, he discovers the truth about New World and about Prentisstown.
The novel is told in first person stream of consciousness, which really works because it's like we as readers are able to "hear" Todd's Noise just as the other inhabitants of Prentisstown would. It also means that we learn as Todd learns and, as his mind shies away to avoid truths that he can't yet accept, information is sometimes withheld from us. In addition, some of the words are written in dialect to help better capture how Todd sounds. There are some unusual narrative techniques used throughout, such as a different font being used to indicate the Noise of different individuals and animals (that's right--even animals have Noise; I particularly enjoyed the depiction of Todd's dog Manchee) as Todd encounters them. Instead of finding them gimmicky, I thought it was a very effective way of visually demonstrating the intrusion of other people's thoughts into one's own.
In some ways, the novel reminded me of the television series Firefly, but only in that these space travelers are the new pioneers. While they have a lot of new technology, the struggle for survival is a very real one and never certain. The novel ends with one hell of a cliffhanger and I find myself for the first time in a long time wanting to dive right into the second novel of the series.
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LibraryThing member clfisha
This is a fun, furiously paced science fiction, dystopian, adventure. It's a great premise (cut off colony, telepathy, the disappearance of women) and Ness doesn't waste one single word setting it up and hooking you in. He is masterful at setting pace and keeping the action going so you won't wish
The characters are mostly great, our hero especially so and probably because it's written in 1st person that the female love interest takes time to flesh out. Although, oddly, for a book touching on gender issues the roles here are nothing but the usual split. I did too, grind my teeth in annoyance as our hero constantly says "eff" with a nudge nudge wink wink. Swear or don't in my opinion.
Lastly I must warm you that the ending is purely cliff-hanger so be warned you may well have a urgent desire to pick up the next one, unless you are like me who has a pet hate of cliff-hanger endings.
So recommend to all action adventure and YA fans, everyone else its probably worth your time too.
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to put it down. It's quite cinematic too, not just because it borrows some movie tropes but is very easy to visualise in your head, the telepathy is wonderfully done in this respect.The characters are mostly great, our hero especially so and probably because it's written in 1st person that the female love interest takes time to flesh out. Although, oddly, for a book touching on gender issues the roles here are nothing but the usual split. I did too, grind my teeth in annoyance as our hero constantly says "eff" with a nudge nudge wink wink. Swear or don't in my opinion.
Lastly I must warm you that the ending is purely cliff-hanger so be warned you may well have a urgent desire to pick up the next one, unless you are like me who has a pet hate of cliff-hanger endings.
So recommend to all action adventure and YA fans, everyone else its probably worth your time too.
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LibraryThing member TerryWeyna
Young adult science fiction and fantasy is not only extraordinarily popular these days (as in Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga); much of it is also extraordinarily good (unlike the Twilight Saga). Ursula K. LeGuin has just won the Nebula Award for the last of her Annals of the Western Shore
Todd lives on New World, in Prentisstown. He is the youngest person in his town, the population of which is entirely male. He has been told that the same virus that created the Noise killed all the women, and that the virus was a weapon unleashed by a species native to the planet that declared war on the settlers when they arrived. Todd will soon be 13 years old, at which time he will officially become a man.
The Noise is a malady suffered by all men and animals on the planet: everything can hear what everything else is thinking. It is unremitting, loud, ugly, distracting. A boy can’t keep any secrets, not even when he wants to use bad language to express his frustrations when he’s off by himself, because there really isn’t anywhere he can go to be by himself; the Noise is everywhere. Even his dog can talk to him, not that the dog has anything interesting to say. It’s no wonder that it drives some men mad.
It quickly becomes apparent, however, that what Todd has been told, about the town, about the war, about the Noise, and about what happened to the women – about just about everything in fact – is a lie. The men of Prentisstown have been able to somehow hide in their Noise, in their grief, what they plan to tell Todd on his 13th birthday, which is only a month away. When that day comes, and Todd is inaugurated into the town’s adult community in its own special way, Todd will learn the truth, and the town will march into its future.
But something happens that changes everything and separates Todd from the town, and from everything he hates (which is most of it) and loves (which is heart-wrenchingly precious to him). Not that the town will give him up so easily; nor will it give up what he has found in the swamp. Just why he is so important to Mayor Prentiss and his henchmen isn’t clear, but it is plain that Todd isn’t so much running to save his physical life – no one seems to want him dead – as to save his soul.
I can tell you little about this book without giving away more than I want to, so I’ll stop discussing the plot here. I can tell you, though, that Knife is a very exciting tale, full of cliffhangers, escapes, surprises, terrible moments and happy discoveries. It is told in the first person in the voice of an uneducated farm boy who has no idea about the situation in which he has suddenly been thrust, and little to rely on except his inherent good character, an apparently strong conscience and the help of an unexpected but equally interesting ally.
I hope you will excuse the cliché, but this truly was a book I could barely put down. When I reached the end, my inclination was to hop on a plane for London and plant myself in Patrick Ness’s study to read the sequel as he wrote it – but apparently the book is already written and in press. So I saved myself the airfare and instead immediately ordered The Ask and the Answer: Chaos Walking: Book Two. I bet you'll want to do the same thing.
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trilogy, Powers. Ysabeau S. Wilce’s Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) won the Andre Norton Award, and if it’s anywhere near as good as Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog, it certainly deserved the award (personally, I think Wilce should get a special award for Really Great Titles). And now the Tiptree Award, which is “presented annually to a work or works that explore and expand gender roles in science fiction and fantasy,” has been awarded to The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chaos Walking: Book One.Todd lives on New World, in Prentisstown. He is the youngest person in his town, the population of which is entirely male. He has been told that the same virus that created the Noise killed all the women, and that the virus was a weapon unleashed by a species native to the planet that declared war on the settlers when they arrived. Todd will soon be 13 years old, at which time he will officially become a man.
The Noise is a malady suffered by all men and animals on the planet: everything can hear what everything else is thinking. It is unremitting, loud, ugly, distracting. A boy can’t keep any secrets, not even when he wants to use bad language to express his frustrations when he’s off by himself, because there really isn’t anywhere he can go to be by himself; the Noise is everywhere. Even his dog can talk to him, not that the dog has anything interesting to say. It’s no wonder that it drives some men mad.
It quickly becomes apparent, however, that what Todd has been told, about the town, about the war, about the Noise, and about what happened to the women – about just about everything in fact – is a lie. The men of Prentisstown have been able to somehow hide in their Noise, in their grief, what they plan to tell Todd on his 13th birthday, which is only a month away. When that day comes, and Todd is inaugurated into the town’s adult community in its own special way, Todd will learn the truth, and the town will march into its future.
But something happens that changes everything and separates Todd from the town, and from everything he hates (which is most of it) and loves (which is heart-wrenchingly precious to him). Not that the town will give him up so easily; nor will it give up what he has found in the swamp. Just why he is so important to Mayor Prentiss and his henchmen isn’t clear, but it is plain that Todd isn’t so much running to save his physical life – no one seems to want him dead – as to save his soul.
I can tell you little about this book without giving away more than I want to, so I’ll stop discussing the plot here. I can tell you, though, that Knife is a very exciting tale, full of cliffhangers, escapes, surprises, terrible moments and happy discoveries. It is told in the first person in the voice of an uneducated farm boy who has no idea about the situation in which he has suddenly been thrust, and little to rely on except his inherent good character, an apparently strong conscience and the help of an unexpected but equally interesting ally.
I hope you will excuse the cliché, but this truly was a book I could barely put down. When I reached the end, my inclination was to hop on a plane for London and plant myself in Patrick Ness’s study to read the sequel as he wrote it – but apparently the book is already written and in press. So I saved myself the airfare and instead immediately ordered The Ask and the Answer: Chaos Walking: Book Two. I bet you'll want to do the same thing.
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LibraryThing member narwhaltortellini
I picked this book up mostly on the strength of the interesting and rather bleak sounding premise (A town of settlers contract a virus in their new home that kills off all the women and makes the survivors able to hear one another's thoughts. Meanwhile the town is slowly dying off and their last
In the end I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't as strong in some parts as others. There are some things this novel does exceedingly well with. The fantastic voice/dialect in the narration of the main character, the blunt humor that goes along with that, the sometimes creepy descriptions of the "noise" of people's thoughts, and the world-building that shows us the world/town the main character has grown up in before the novel. In these areas the book blows most all books I've read in recent memory out of the water, be they aimed at teens or adult.
On the other hand, (without spoiling too much) the main character has to escape from his home town early in the book, and while the beginning stages of the escape were engaging, the narrative eventually devolves into nothing much but lots of running away from pursuers toward a far off goal. Occasionally a pursuer or two will catch up with our mains and give a big adrenaline-filled life-threatening situation, but then it's back to more of the same running. Even when the mains sometimes meet others along their path, friendly or not, it does little to mix things up.
That's not to say the running is dull. The ability of everyone to hear one another's thoughts gives the chase something unique you won't find in other similar stories and ups the tension a lot. But the plot of the book just doesn't have the inventiveness of the premise, world building, and narrative voice. The humor in the narration (part of what made it so distinctive) also becomes less frequent the farther on you get into the book, and the world-building outside the main's home town is not as impressive. There are still secrets to be revealed about the world as the novel goes on, but after being drawn out so long (and never being terribly hard to guess) the reveals don't have a lot of impact and don't feel terrible relevant when the novel is just filled with running, anyway.
Additionally, there's lots of out-and-out "evil" characters (including a deranged priest. I'm not even religious, and I still get tired of how often certain kinds of (often less than fantastic) stories use "very religious" as shorthand for "crazy"), and the sexual politics of the book are simplistic. Not surprising for a YA novel I suppose, but I guess the ambitious set up lead me to hope the novel would be more sophisticated in these areas more than I really should have.
Even if the middle and end of the novel doesn't live up to its impressive beginning (be that the first sentence or the first 100 or so pages), it's still probably a better and more intriguing read than a lot of YA novels. Be warned, however, that the novel ends on something like a cliff hanger. I say "something like" because it's less like my idea of the usual cliff hanger and more like simply ending during the climax of the entire story arc. If you're not going to bother reading the next book like me, this will take a significant chunk of satisfaction from the experience.
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child, the main character, is about to come of age, but there's something they aren't telling him...) contrasted with a glace at the surprisingly humorous (and just plain good) first line. (Along with the review quote off the back claiming the rest of the book lived up to this first line.)In the end I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't as strong in some parts as others. There are some things this novel does exceedingly well with. The fantastic voice/dialect in the narration of the main character, the blunt humor that goes along with that, the sometimes creepy descriptions of the "noise" of people's thoughts, and the world-building that shows us the world/town the main character has grown up in before the novel. In these areas the book blows most all books I've read in recent memory out of the water, be they aimed at teens or adult.
On the other hand, (without spoiling too much) the main character has to escape from his home town early in the book, and while the beginning stages of the escape were engaging, the narrative eventually devolves into nothing much but lots of running away from pursuers toward a far off goal. Occasionally a pursuer or two will catch up with our mains and give a big adrenaline-filled life-threatening situation, but then it's back to more of the same running. Even when the mains sometimes meet others along their path, friendly or not, it does little to mix things up.
That's not to say the running is dull. The ability of everyone to hear one another's thoughts gives the chase something unique you won't find in other similar stories and ups the tension a lot. But the plot of the book just doesn't have the inventiveness of the premise, world building, and narrative voice. The humor in the narration (part of what made it so distinctive) also becomes less frequent the farther on you get into the book, and the world-building outside the main's home town is not as impressive. There are still secrets to be revealed about the world as the novel goes on, but after being drawn out so long (and never being terribly hard to guess) the reveals don't have a lot of impact and don't feel terrible relevant when the novel is just filled with running, anyway.
Additionally, there's lots of out-and-out "evil" characters (including a deranged priest. I'm not even religious, and I still get tired of how often certain kinds of (often less than fantastic) stories use "very religious" as shorthand for "crazy"), and the sexual politics of the book are simplistic. Not surprising for a YA novel I suppose, but I guess the ambitious set up lead me to hope the novel would be more sophisticated in these areas more than I really should have.
Even if the middle and end of the novel doesn't live up to its impressive beginning (be that the first sentence or the first 100 or so pages), it's still probably a better and more intriguing read than a lot of YA novels. Be warned, however, that the novel ends on something like a cliff hanger. I say "something like" because it's less like my idea of the usual cliff hanger and more like simply ending during the climax of the entire story arc. If you're not going to bother reading the next book like me, this will take a significant chunk of satisfaction from the experience.
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LibraryThing member SamuelW
With its edgy, striking cover art and scrawled mess of blood-red writing, Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go is a book that promises its reader something different – something beyond the level of ordinary fiction. On that promise, it delivers. Creative, original and unconventionally
Perhaps this book's greatest strength, however, is the way in which the stream-of-consciousness prose serves the story. What better way to introduce the concept of Noise than to give the reader Todd's unedited Noise in writing? Ness' raw, high-impact narration may take a little getting used to, but it soon proves the perfect vehicle to transport its audience completely into Todd's mind. His use of varying fonts is particularly effective, as is his superbly unconventional paragraphing. There are moments where Todd's tension and panic break free from the page and flow directly into the reader, creating some of the most powerful and absorbing scenes I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It is one thing to say that a novel has 'edge-of-your-seat' action, but quite another to be literally on the edge of your seat, frantically turning pages.
For some readers, Ness' abrupt cliffhanger ending may sour the novel – but this is very much a matter of personal taste, and a small price to pay for the promise of two more books of (hopefully) equal quality. Answers may be withheld, but there is still substance enough here to fuel a thrilling, emotionally charged, coming-of-age death race across themes of choice, religion and morality. I can certainly see myself rereading this book, and getting even more out of it than I already have.
If you are a teenager or young adult who doesn't mind a little violence, read this book. My thanks to the judges of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for an outstanding choice.
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brilliant, this book is a rare marriage of readability and depth; a novel that grabs the attention and refuses to let go. Ness takes an absorbing premise and executes it masterfully, revealing his unique dystopia bit by compelling bit. Elements are incorporated here from numerous genres, creating a novel that defies categorisation. One might call it science fiction, but its tone is like no other science fiction novel I know of. Likewise with ideas – this book has them in spades, refusing to let itself go stale by advancing only one or two.Perhaps this book's greatest strength, however, is the way in which the stream-of-consciousness prose serves the story. What better way to introduce the concept of Noise than to give the reader Todd's unedited Noise in writing? Ness' raw, high-impact narration may take a little getting used to, but it soon proves the perfect vehicle to transport its audience completely into Todd's mind. His use of varying fonts is particularly effective, as is his superbly unconventional paragraphing. There are moments where Todd's tension and panic break free from the page and flow directly into the reader, creating some of the most powerful and absorbing scenes I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It is one thing to say that a novel has 'edge-of-your-seat' action, but quite another to be literally on the edge of your seat, frantically turning pages.
For some readers, Ness' abrupt cliffhanger ending may sour the novel – but this is very much a matter of personal taste, and a small price to pay for the promise of two more books of (hopefully) equal quality. Answers may be withheld, but there is still substance enough here to fuel a thrilling, emotionally charged, coming-of-age death race across themes of choice, religion and morality. I can certainly see myself rereading this book, and getting even more out of it than I already have.
If you are a teenager or young adult who doesn't mind a little violence, read this book. My thanks to the judges of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for an outstanding choice.
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LibraryThing member booksandwine
I am an evangelist for The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Seriously, you shouldn't even be reading my review. You should be reading The Knife of Never Letting Go instead. The book starts off on an incredibly confusing note. You are just sort of tossed into Todd's world. However, when
The Knife of Never Letting go is definitely a new-to-me take on dystopia. First of all, we are in a world where your every thought is public. I mean how much would life suck if your thoughts weren't private. You wouldn't have any secrets. It would be hard to be polite, because people would definitely know you don't like them. I know I couldn't stand something like that. The crazy government scary dude in charge part, that is not new to me at all. However, it's the premise that is unique.
Todd is a character whom I just want to hug. Life definitely deals Todd a bad card. He's an orphan. He's the youngest guy in Prentisstown, and has yet to go through his manhood rights. And of course, he is the hero of our tale, so you know, bad stuff will happen to Todd and he will grow and learn from it, because guys, that's what happens to every main character, in pretty much every single book ever. Well, maybe that's a bit of a broad sweeping untrue generalization, but chances are if it is a book I enjoyed, something bad has happened to the main character. Right, well I still just want to give Todd a hug.
Now, my absolute favorite part of the book was Manchee. As far as dogs go, I love them. And yes, Manchee was my favorite character of the book. He is exactly how I imagine a dog would talk. He says things the pups we have here would probably say if they could talk.
Now, that I have characters I liked out of the way, I want to talk about a character I could not stand. There's this crazy character named Aaron. He is the bionic man, I swear to God. I honestly got frustrated and irritated and annoyed every time he showed up. He never ever died. He always brought trouble. I just, agh, dreaded him. You'll see why when you read this book.
However, this is all tempered with a small thread of hope. Although, it seems like it's consistently attempting to be extinguished, hope always remains, and I appreciate that. After all, it is such an important thing to hold on to. Here, let me show you this heart gripping quote:
"You've overcome obstacles and dangers and things that should've killed you. You've outrun an army and a madman and deadly illness and seen things most people will never see. How do you think you could possibly come this far if you didn't have hope?" -pg. 376
and this
"....and I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, too, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare to the world and when has the world let us win a dare?" pg. 423
Yeah, enough said on hope.
Back to things that annoy me. I keep pushing this book on my boyfriend to read, but he refuses to read it. How irritating right? When you could really bond with someone you love over a book, yet they refuse to take your suggestion.
Finally, I am dying to read The Ask And The Answer, however I am waiting for the PB to come out in August, because I like my series to have similar formats. I already have a copy of Monsters and Men to read, so yes, it really is eager waiting until August, and knowing myself I will probably break down and buy the hardback regardless.
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this happens, don't be discouraged, dear friend. Just trust the author. I am pretty sure for the most part, authors know what they are doing. Seriously, all will be explained and revealed. The Knife of Never Letting go is definitely a new-to-me take on dystopia. First of all, we are in a world where your every thought is public. I mean how much would life suck if your thoughts weren't private. You wouldn't have any secrets. It would be hard to be polite, because people would definitely know you don't like them. I know I couldn't stand something like that. The crazy government scary dude in charge part, that is not new to me at all. However, it's the premise that is unique.
Todd is a character whom I just want to hug. Life definitely deals Todd a bad card. He's an orphan. He's the youngest guy in Prentisstown, and has yet to go through his manhood rights. And of course, he is the hero of our tale, so you know, bad stuff will happen to Todd and he will grow and learn from it, because guys, that's what happens to every main character, in pretty much every single book ever. Well, maybe that's a bit of a broad sweeping untrue generalization, but chances are if it is a book I enjoyed, something bad has happened to the main character. Right, well I still just want to give Todd a hug.
Now, my absolute favorite part of the book was Manchee. As far as dogs go, I love them. And yes, Manchee was my favorite character of the book. He is exactly how I imagine a dog would talk. He says things the pups we have here would probably say if they could talk.
Now, that I have characters I liked out of the way, I want to talk about a character I could not stand. There's this crazy character named Aaron. He is the bionic man, I swear to God. I honestly got frustrated and irritated and annoyed every time he showed up. He never ever died. He always brought trouble. I just, agh, dreaded him. You'll see why when you read this book.
However, this is all tempered with a small thread of hope. Although, it seems like it's consistently attempting to be extinguished, hope always remains, and I appreciate that. After all, it is such an important thing to hold on to. Here, let me show you this heart gripping quote:
"You've overcome obstacles and dangers and things that should've killed you. You've outrun an army and a madman and deadly illness and seen things most people will never see. How do you think you could possibly come this far if you didn't have hope?" -pg. 376
and this
"....and I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, too, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare to the world and when has the world let us win a dare?" pg. 423
Yeah, enough said on hope.
Back to things that annoy me. I keep pushing this book on my boyfriend to read, but he refuses to read it. How irritating right? When you could really bond with someone you love over a book, yet they refuse to take your suggestion.
Finally, I am dying to read The Ask And The Answer, however I am waiting for the PB to come out in August, because I like my series to have similar formats. I already have a copy of Monsters and Men to read, so yes, it really is eager waiting until August, and knowing myself I will probably break down and buy the hardback regardless.
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LibraryThing member SmithSJ01
This book is amazing and it was a big surprise for me as to how much I enjoyed it; it’s a good cross-over children’s book that will work with a range of audience ages. I want to start with the cover of the hardback book. The yellow colouring depicts what I expect the fields/forests in
Todd is the last boy in Prentisstown, a town of men. When boys become men something powerful happens. Todd is just one month away from this event when he comes across something he has never experienced before – a spot of silence, a block of nothing. What has he come across and what will he do about it? The race is on and Todd has to run for his life. He doesn’t really know what he’s running from and at times the reader isn’t entirely sure, there is no dramatic irony at all. With a made up vocabulary in places, the novel can be challenging but entertaining. The running did become a little too long and 50 pages could have been cut out to give it more of an impact but I was definitely there with Todd all the way. Some stunning narrative makes this a roller-coaster of a ride. There are a few heart-breaking moments and a thrilling ending, making Chaos Walking Book One a non-stop adventure that I would recommend.
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Prentisstown to be like, whilst the opaque dust jacket has lots of words written all over it, which within minutes of reading you discover is Noise. The concept of Noise is difficult to imagine. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts – any living creature experiences thoughts in a constant never-ending stream, including images. By creature, I mean exactly that; it isn’t just humans. Now whilst I’d love to know what my cat makes of her day to day life I can’t possibly imagine never having privacy or being able to keep a secret. Welcome to Todd Hewitt’s world.Todd is the last boy in Prentisstown, a town of men. When boys become men something powerful happens. Todd is just one month away from this event when he comes across something he has never experienced before – a spot of silence, a block of nothing. What has he come across and what will he do about it? The race is on and Todd has to run for his life. He doesn’t really know what he’s running from and at times the reader isn’t entirely sure, there is no dramatic irony at all. With a made up vocabulary in places, the novel can be challenging but entertaining. The running did become a little too long and 50 pages could have been cut out to give it more of an impact but I was definitely there with Todd all the way. Some stunning narrative makes this a roller-coaster of a ride. There are a few heart-breaking moments and a thrilling ending, making Chaos Walking Book One a non-stop adventure that I would recommend.
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LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Summary: For Todd Hewitt, and every other man in Prentisstown, there's no such thing as being alone. One of the last strikes of the alien Spackle against the human settlers was a germ that killed all of the women, and made the men - and their animals - capable of broadcasting their thoughts, and
Review: I'm hardly the first person to say so, but: holy crap, this book was good. Really, shockingly, nail-bitingly, bedtime-ignoring-ly good. I was coming off a book that was the polar opposite of plot-driven, and I was looking for a read with a focus on telling a good story, something that would suck me in and keep me reading. And man alive, did The Knife of Never Letting Go deliver. It's got twists and turns like nobody's business, most of which caught me totally by surprise, and Ness does a good job of delivering action and suspense and mystery and excitement and emotion in equal measure. He even employs one of my usual literary pet peeves - where the narrator knows something (in this case by reading it in someone else's Noise) that the reader doesn't, and the author is deliberately coy about not providing the reader with crucial information in the name of building up suspense - with somehow manages to do it in a way that didn't leave me totally frustrated and annoyed. Don't ask me how; authorial magic and possibly voodoo, I suspect.
The excellent plot doesn't mean that Ness skimps on his characters, however. Todd's a sympathetic narrator, and watching him deal with the systematic stripping away of everything he had and everything thought he knew is quite fascinating. A lot of the coming-of-age elements of the story are admittedly kind of predictable, but Ness manages to frame them in such a way that they feel like something new. Yet again, Ness gets away with another of my literary pet peeves when it comes to his characters: heavily transcribing dialects and deliberately misspelling words do indicate the uneducated. That sort of thing has vast potential to be annoying, but Ness makes it work, and in Todd's voice it just sounds authentic.
Also, while we're on the subject of characters: Manchee is now an inductee into my Literary Canine Hall of Fame. He's an awesome character, while still being completely believable as a normal dog, and he made me miss having a puppy of my own something fierce.
Really, the only issues I had with this book were 1) there was an awful lot of running, so it felt at times like a book-length non-stop chase scene; some of that could have been pared down, and 2) the one bad guy that just would not die, well beyond the bounds of what is medically believable or even physically possible. Other than that, however, this book was just all-around fan-fricking-tastic, and I can't believe I waited so long to read it. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: If by some chance I am not the last fan of YA dystopian fiction that hadn't read this book, then I strongly encourage whoever's left to stop delaying and pick this book up posthaste. You won't regret it.
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incapable of shutting themselves off from the Noise of others. Todd is the last boy in Prentisstown, only one month from his thirteenth birthday and the ceremony that will turn him into a man. In the meantime, though, he's been spending a lot of time in the swamp that borders Prentisstown, alone but for his talking dog Manchee. Then, one day, he comes across something he'd always thought was impossible, and that discovery sets off a chain of events that will cause Todd to have to flee for his life. But where else can he possibly go, and how can he get away when his pursuers can hear his every thought?Review: I'm hardly the first person to say so, but: holy crap, this book was good. Really, shockingly, nail-bitingly, bedtime-ignoring-ly good. I was coming off a book that was the polar opposite of plot-driven, and I was looking for a read with a focus on telling a good story, something that would suck me in and keep me reading. And man alive, did The Knife of Never Letting Go deliver. It's got twists and turns like nobody's business, most of which caught me totally by surprise, and Ness does a good job of delivering action and suspense and mystery and excitement and emotion in equal measure. He even employs one of my usual literary pet peeves - where the narrator knows something (in this case by reading it in someone else's Noise) that the reader doesn't, and the author is deliberately coy about not providing the reader with crucial information in the name of building up suspense - with somehow manages to do it in a way that didn't leave me totally frustrated and annoyed. Don't ask me how; authorial magic and possibly voodoo, I suspect.
The excellent plot doesn't mean that Ness skimps on his characters, however. Todd's a sympathetic narrator, and watching him deal with the systematic stripping away of everything he had and everything thought he knew is quite fascinating. A lot of the coming-of-age elements of the story are admittedly kind of predictable, but Ness manages to frame them in such a way that they feel like something new. Yet again, Ness gets away with another of my literary pet peeves when it comes to his characters: heavily transcribing dialects and deliberately misspelling words do indicate the uneducated. That sort of thing has vast potential to be annoying, but Ness makes it work, and in Todd's voice it just sounds authentic.
Also, while we're on the subject of characters: Manchee is now an inductee into my Literary Canine Hall of Fame. He's an awesome character, while still being completely believable as a normal dog, and he made me miss having a puppy of my own something fierce.
Really, the only issues I had with this book were 1) there was an awful lot of running, so it felt at times like a book-length non-stop chase scene; some of that could have been pared down, and 2) the one bad guy that just would not die, well beyond the bounds of what is medically believable or even physically possible. Other than that, however, this book was just all-around fan-fricking-tastic, and I can't believe I waited so long to read it. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Recommendation: If by some chance I am not the last fan of YA dystopian fiction that hadn't read this book, then I strongly encourage whoever's left to stop delaying and pick this book up posthaste. You won't regret it.
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LibraryThing member porch_reader
Several of you have read Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy, and although reviews have been mixed, the premise sounded interesting. So when there was a good deal on them for Kindle, I snapped them up. I finished [Catching Fire] on vacation, and decided that another fast-paced action-packed story was just
I don't want to give too much away, but suffice it to say that this book takes place in New World, where Todd Hewitt has grown up in a community in which there are only men, and they can all hear each other's thoughts. But just as he is about to become a man (at the age of 13), he learns that much of what he believes about life in New World is wrong. The truth is gradually revealed as he tries to escape from some particularly unsavory members of the community and find a way to do what is right.
I enjoyed this book and will definitely read the next in the series (especially given the cliffhanger ending). Todd is a flawed but likeable protagonist, although he is overshadowed by his dog Manchee, who adds a lot to the story. The pace was somewhat frenetic at times, which left me wanting to read some Marilynne Robinson for contrast. However, the themes in the story were engaging enough to help me overlook this.
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the ticket for evenings in the hotel room, so I started [The Knife of Letting Go], the first in the Chaos Walking trilogy. I took a break for a couple of group reads, but had no difficulty getting back into the story. I don't want to give too much away, but suffice it to say that this book takes place in New World, where Todd Hewitt has grown up in a community in which there are only men, and they can all hear each other's thoughts. But just as he is about to become a man (at the age of 13), he learns that much of what he believes about life in New World is wrong. The truth is gradually revealed as he tries to escape from some particularly unsavory members of the community and find a way to do what is right.
I enjoyed this book and will definitely read the next in the series (especially given the cliffhanger ending). Todd is a flawed but likeable protagonist, although he is overshadowed by his dog Manchee, who adds a lot to the story. The pace was somewhat frenetic at times, which left me wanting to read some Marilynne Robinson for contrast. However, the themes in the story were engaging enough to help me overlook this.
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LibraryThing member tim_halpin
With an opening sentence of 'the first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say', you can't really go wrong. And The Knife of Never Letting Go doesn't go far wrong. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time. Apparently I'm a bit late on the
At it's heart I suppose this is a 'coming of age' novel, about a boy learning what it takes to become a man. But it's so much more than that. It's sci-fi at it's very best, using the opportunities of the genre to explore the human condition, to tackle the basic questions of what it means to be human, the nature of truth, the possibility of morality, and the role of history, atonement and innocence.
Enough generalities. Todd's a wonderful character, a fully engaging narrator, and despite this being written in the first person, I never got the feeling that he was navel-gazing. He leaves things unsaid when they're too painful to think, or when they're just better left unspoken. His relationships with the other characters, especially his dog, Manchee, are wonderfully complex and have the spark of authenticity which is the sign of a truly great novel. The only relationships that perhaps don't live up to this are between him and his foster-family, Ben and Cillian, which I found slightly forced, and would have liked to explore further.
Further exploration of relationships was probably limited by the driving plot, which keeps you turning the page, guessing and second guessing. It's a mark of Ness's ability that he managed to weave such authentic characters into a book with such an exciting plot, when usually authors have to compromise one or the other.
I realised I've not mentioned Viola at all. She's fantastic, but I get the feeling that I'm going to have more to say about her after I've read the sequels...
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up-take here, as it's been winning awards for years. At it's heart I suppose this is a 'coming of age' novel, about a boy learning what it takes to become a man. But it's so much more than that. It's sci-fi at it's very best, using the opportunities of the genre to explore the human condition, to tackle the basic questions of what it means to be human, the nature of truth, the possibility of morality, and the role of history, atonement and innocence.
Enough generalities. Todd's a wonderful character, a fully engaging narrator, and despite this being written in the first person, I never got the feeling that he was navel-gazing. He leaves things unsaid when they're too painful to think, or when they're just better left unspoken. His relationships with the other characters, especially his dog, Manchee, are wonderfully complex and have the spark of authenticity which is the sign of a truly great novel. The only relationships that perhaps don't live up to this are between him and his foster-family, Ben and Cillian, which I found slightly forced, and would have liked to explore further.
Further exploration of relationships was probably limited by the driving plot, which keeps you turning the page, guessing and second guessing. It's a mark of Ness's ability that he managed to weave such authentic characters into a book with such an exciting plot, when usually authors have to compromise one or the other.
I realised I've not mentioned Viola at all. She's fantastic, but I get the feeling that I'm going to have more to say about her after I've read the sequels...
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LibraryThing member gaskella
This novel for early teens+ was short-listed for the 2009 Carnegie Medal, and won the vote of the boys shadowing the award at the school where I work. I have to say it was a fantastic read for adults too, being multi-layered and thought-provoking - putting a new spin on the coming of age novel by
Todd Hewitt is just one month away from his thirteenth birthday and he's the last boy in Prentisstown - a town of just men. His world is different to ours though, when the settlers arrived, everyone was infected with a virus which causes everyone to be able to hear the thoughts of every creature in close range - even your pets. The conversations between Todd and his dog, that he didn't want but comes to depend upon, are particularly touching.
"Need a poo, Todd."
"Shut up Manchee."
"Poo. Poo, Todd."
"I said shut it."
Then one day, Todd hears someone or something that exudes silence - that's not meant to happen. Being able to hear what others are thinking, he soon finds out that this silence means his town is living a lie, and that to escape what's coming to him he will have to run - and the posse will be after him. All this in the first fifty pages, leaving four hundred plus for Todd to grow up very quickly indeed. He is forced to ask some very difficult questions, and finds it very hard to get any answers at all.
I can't tell you too much more about the story without giving anything away. However, there are a series of fantastic cliff-hangers, with some more philosophical breathers in between. The novel however finishes on a real climax which will lead directly into the sequel The Ask and the Answer (now out in hardback). I enjoyed this book immensely. I loved the combination of themes, setting a coming of age story into a dystopian, slightly Sci Fi setting, and then turning it into a road novel with a John Ford style Western at its heart, (I'm thinking The Searchers (1956) here. It was fantastic and I am really looking forward to reading the follow-up.
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setting it in a dystopian new world.Todd Hewitt is just one month away from his thirteenth birthday and he's the last boy in Prentisstown - a town of just men. His world is different to ours though, when the settlers arrived, everyone was infected with a virus which causes everyone to be able to hear the thoughts of every creature in close range - even your pets. The conversations between Todd and his dog, that he didn't want but comes to depend upon, are particularly touching.
"Need a poo, Todd."
"Shut up Manchee."
"Poo. Poo, Todd."
"I said shut it."
Then one day, Todd hears someone or something that exudes silence - that's not meant to happen. Being able to hear what others are thinking, he soon finds out that this silence means his town is living a lie, and that to escape what's coming to him he will have to run - and the posse will be after him. All this in the first fifty pages, leaving four hundred plus for Todd to grow up very quickly indeed. He is forced to ask some very difficult questions, and finds it very hard to get any answers at all.
I can't tell you too much more about the story without giving anything away. However, there are a series of fantastic cliff-hangers, with some more philosophical breathers in between. The novel however finishes on a real climax which will lead directly into the sequel The Ask and the Answer (now out in hardback). I enjoyed this book immensely. I loved the combination of themes, setting a coming of age story into a dystopian, slightly Sci Fi setting, and then turning it into a road novel with a John Ford style Western at its heart, (I'm thinking The Searchers (1956) here. It was fantastic and I am really looking forward to reading the follow-up.
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LibraryThing member stephxsu
Ah, man. Have I committed some sort of YA felony by not finishing and not thinking much of this book? I have heard honestly nothing but good things about this book; many readers likened it to The Hunger Games trilogy, for goodness’ sake! And yet I fear that the only reason I read as much of the
I have nothing against its unique writing style. It definitely artfully hints at Todd’s illiteracy and lack of education. I think that Ness also does well with the social implications of the Noise and what it is critiquing in our world.
However, the importance of that theme, I felt, was lost in the muddled and not very captivating (for me, at least) plot. Todd literally gets pushed out of Prentisstown and into this journey, stumbles around and runs into people whom he knows nothing about but who all apparently know what he doesn’t know about Prentisstown…and on and on and on, all the way down the road, through and past more and more villages. I simply don’t care for plots that involve an endless running away from big bad doodoo men, with no explanation ever given. It’s device-y, damnit! I’m sure, Patrick Ness, that you know exactly what Todd’s world is about, I don’t doubt your skills in worldbuilding, but then to resort to an endless chase as your entire plot—it just kills me.
And I don’t know about you, but it just makes me so MAD when there’s one big thing that the author refuses to reveal to the reader, and yet all the characters seem to know what it is, or they figure it out, and YOU don’t, because you CAN’T. It feels so device-y to me, like it’s been deliberately left out to string you along in the hopes that you’ll read to the end just to find out this horrible thing that they all know but you don’t. Uh, thanks, but no thanks, bud. I will resist your games and I will live without knowing what horrible thing all the characters know and all the people who have read this book know, and I will be just fine.
I mean, by all means, read this review just for laughs if you’re a fan of the trilogy. I find it pretty amusing myself, how I couldn’t get into this book. I hope that I by no means discourage you from giving this book a try. But perhaps you may be a little better informed as to what you’re getting yourself into.
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book as I did before finally putting it down was because I was on a dull plane ride with nothing else at my disposal to read.I have nothing against its unique writing style. It definitely artfully hints at Todd’s illiteracy and lack of education. I think that Ness also does well with the social implications of the Noise and what it is critiquing in our world.
However, the importance of that theme, I felt, was lost in the muddled and not very captivating (for me, at least) plot. Todd literally gets pushed out of Prentisstown and into this journey, stumbles around and runs into people whom he knows nothing about but who all apparently know what he doesn’t know about Prentisstown…and on and on and on, all the way down the road, through and past more and more villages. I simply don’t care for plots that involve an endless running away from big bad doodoo men, with no explanation ever given. It’s device-y, damnit! I’m sure, Patrick Ness, that you know exactly what Todd’s world is about, I don’t doubt your skills in worldbuilding, but then to resort to an endless chase as your entire plot—it just kills me.
And I don’t know about you, but it just makes me so MAD when there’s one big thing that the author refuses to reveal to the reader, and yet all the characters seem to know what it is, or they figure it out, and YOU don’t, because you CAN’T. It feels so device-y to me, like it’s been deliberately left out to string you along in the hopes that you’ll read to the end just to find out this horrible thing that they all know but you don’t. Uh, thanks, but no thanks, bud. I will resist your games and I will live without knowing what horrible thing all the characters know and all the people who have read this book know, and I will be just fine.
I mean, by all means, read this review just for laughs if you’re a fan of the trilogy. I find it pretty amusing myself, how I couldn’t get into this book. I hope that I by no means discourage you from giving this book a try. But perhaps you may be a little better informed as to what you’re getting yourself into.
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LibraryThing member nbmars
Note: There are no spoilers in this review.
I made it through maybe two chapters of this dystopic YA novel, scoffing and contemptuous of all the hysteria in the blogosphere over this book, before I too became maniacally obsessed. It is really, really good!
Todd Hewitt is a young teen who lives in
Prentisstown is unique in that there are only men there (all the women were purportedly killed during the war against the resident aliens called Spackles), and secondly, the men can read each other’s minds. This latter phenomenon, said to be a product of bioterrorism from the Spackles, is called “The Noise” and even the creatures communicate their thoughts. The Noise never stops, and many of the men go crazy.
While there’s no hiding from each other because of The Noise, Todd points out:
"…the thing to remember, the thing that’s most important of all that I might say in this here telling of things is that Noise ain’t truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there’s a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don’t watch out.”
Sadly, Todd doesn’t take his own advice. And one day, only one month before his achieving “manhood” (according to some secret ritual of Prentisstown of which he is not yet aware), everything changes. For he discovers a place where there is no noise; there is only Quiet. And from then on, his life is in danger.
Evaluation: This book, volume 1 of The Chaos Walking Trilogy, is as good as everyone claims it to be. I could come up with a quibble or two, but (a) it would involve spoilers and (b) they really don’t matter. It’s a terrific read – don’t miss this one! Oh, and while you’re reading, order the second volume in this trilogy, The Ask and The Answer, because I guarantee you will want it!
I made it through maybe two chapters of this dystopic YA novel, scoffing and contemptuous of all the hysteria in the blogosphere over this book, before I too became maniacally obsessed. It is really, really good!
Todd Hewitt is a young teen who lives in
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Prentisstown on New World, a planet originally colonized to make “a new way of life, one clean and simple and honest and good, one different from Old World in all respects…” In particular, the colonists came to establish a Church, one that would leave behind corruption in favor of purity and brotherhood.Prentisstown is unique in that there are only men there (all the women were purportedly killed during the war against the resident aliens called Spackles), and secondly, the men can read each other’s minds. This latter phenomenon, said to be a product of bioterrorism from the Spackles, is called “The Noise” and even the creatures communicate their thoughts. The Noise never stops, and many of the men go crazy.
While there’s no hiding from each other because of The Noise, Todd points out:
"…the thing to remember, the thing that’s most important of all that I might say in this here telling of things is that Noise ain’t truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there’s a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don’t watch out.”
Sadly, Todd doesn’t take his own advice. And one day, only one month before his achieving “manhood” (according to some secret ritual of Prentisstown of which he is not yet aware), everything changes. For he discovers a place where there is no noise; there is only Quiet. And from then on, his life is in danger.
Evaluation: This book, volume 1 of The Chaos Walking Trilogy, is as good as everyone claims it to be. I could come up with a quibble or two, but (a) it would involve spoilers and (b) they really don’t matter. It’s a terrific read – don’t miss this one! Oh, and while you’re reading, order the second volume in this trilogy, The Ask and The Answer, because I guarantee you will want it!
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LibraryThing member lunacat
Todd Hewitt is a month away from his thirteenth birthday, and the day he becomes a man. He will no longer be the only boy in Prentisstown.
But his life path is about to veer off track, when he sense a place of absolute silence amongst the crocs and snakes of the swamp. The silence is so intense, so
Because everyone he has ever known has been lying to him. Even though he can read their thoughts. So now, Todd is on the run.
This was a fascinating, gripping and fast paced book. The setting is fantastically realised, as well as being realistically chilling.
I can't really say too much more as this is the first part of the 'Chaos Walking' series, so I'm very cautious about spoilers! However I will say that it contained two things that I find hit me the hardest and make me remember a book, not necessarily in a good OR bad way but sometimes in a frustrating way!! I can't wait to read the next one
A YA book that is terrifying, electrifying and heartbreaking
But his life path is about to veer off track, when he sense a place of absolute silence amongst the crocs and snakes of the swamp. The silence is so intense, so
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incredible, because nowhere in Prentisstown or the area around is silence. Todd has never heard silence since the day he was born. Everywhere he goes, he hears thoughts. The thoughts of his fellow men, the animals, every living animal. But this silence, this quiet, is going to change everything.Because everyone he has ever known has been lying to him. Even though he can read their thoughts. So now, Todd is on the run.
This was a fascinating, gripping and fast paced book. The setting is fantastically realised, as well as being realistically chilling.
I can't really say too much more as this is the first part of the 'Chaos Walking' series, so I'm very cautious about spoilers! However I will say that it contained two things that I find hit me the hardest and make me remember a book, not necessarily in a good OR bad way but sometimes in a frustrating way!! I can't wait to read the next one
A YA book that is terrifying, electrifying and heartbreaking
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LibraryThing member tiamatq
Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown and, in one month, he will be a man. But Prentisstown isn't like other towns. First, there are no women in Prentisstown - they all died years ago, when the aliens called Spackle released a germ that created Noise. And that's the second thing... the Noise.
Or is there? When Todd and his dog, Manchee, are exploring the swamp one day, they discover a pocket of silence, where there is no Noise. And the source of the quiet is a girl, something that Todd never expected to see. Todd does his best to keep the girl a secret from the rest of Prentisstown. But Todd isn't the only one keeping secrets - the men of the town have been hiding something from him, something about their past and the legacy that belongs to each boy that becomes a man there. Soon Todd finds himself running for his life, trying to escape a past he didn't know existed. But how can you run when those chasing you can hear your every thought?
The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first in the Chaos Walking series. I thought it was a little slow to start with - this is a world that feels recognizable when you see the settler life that Prentisstown is leading, and you think you know where things are going when the rug gets pulled out from under you. Todd knows almost nothing about his town's dark history or the surrounding world, so you are constantly having to revise the way you understand Todd's world. This got to be a little bit overwhelming, which is how it should be for Todd, but wore on me as I was reading.
The concept of Noise, of trying to keep your thoughts private or calm or layering them so that you can keep something to yourself, as really intriguing, and I liked the connection the author made between the way we're bombarded with all kinds of information today. The way Noise is expressed in the book is very powerful, and I would've liked to have seen that appear a bit more throughout. You also got a strong sense of the desperation that Todd and Viola must feel and the hopelessness of their journey, which can be a bit crushing to the reader... particularly when it comes to Chapter 31. I had a good cry at the end of that chapter.
This book does have one of my all-time favorite openings: "The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say. About anything." With such a great opening, it can feel like a bit of a slog to continue those first few chapters. However, this book is worth it!
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Every one can hear everyone else's thoughts, from the tiniest squirrel to the loudest man. It's an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise that cannot be ignored. There is no quiet, no privacy, and no room for secrets.Or is there? When Todd and his dog, Manchee, are exploring the swamp one day, they discover a pocket of silence, where there is no Noise. And the source of the quiet is a girl, something that Todd never expected to see. Todd does his best to keep the girl a secret from the rest of Prentisstown. But Todd isn't the only one keeping secrets - the men of the town have been hiding something from him, something about their past and the legacy that belongs to each boy that becomes a man there. Soon Todd finds himself running for his life, trying to escape a past he didn't know existed. But how can you run when those chasing you can hear your every thought?
The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first in the Chaos Walking series. I thought it was a little slow to start with - this is a world that feels recognizable when you see the settler life that Prentisstown is leading, and you think you know where things are going when the rug gets pulled out from under you. Todd knows almost nothing about his town's dark history or the surrounding world, so you are constantly having to revise the way you understand Todd's world. This got to be a little bit overwhelming, which is how it should be for Todd, but wore on me as I was reading.
The concept of Noise, of trying to keep your thoughts private or calm or layering them so that you can keep something to yourself, as really intriguing, and I liked the connection the author made between the way we're bombarded with all kinds of information today. The way Noise is expressed in the book is very powerful, and I would've liked to have seen that appear a bit more throughout. You also got a strong sense of the desperation that Todd and Viola must feel and the hopelessness of their journey, which can be a bit crushing to the reader... particularly when it comes to Chapter 31. I had a good cry at the end of that chapter.
This book does have one of my all-time favorite openings: "The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say. About anything." With such a great opening, it can feel like a bit of a slog to continue those first few chapters. However, this book is worth it!
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LibraryThing member mtlkch
I have never hated a book as much as this one. It is, without a doubt, the darkest, most depressing book I have ever read. It is well written, very suspenseful; there were several times I wanted to put it down because of one of the many heart-breaking things that happen, but I could not stop
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reading. The ending is a definite cliffhanger to suck you in to reading the next book in the series, but I won't be reading it. I can still hear Manchee's voice, "Todd, Todd?" Show Less
LibraryThing member delphica
(#34 in the 2009 Book Challenge)
This is so terrific and gripping and intense. It got like a million prizes when it was released last year in the U.K. although I haven't seen much about it over here. Soft science fiction, Todd is a thirteen year old boy growing up in a colony on another planet where
It is supposed to be a trilogy and it doesn't stand on its own, so I'm cautiously looking forward to reading the second one which just came out.
And I'm not quite sure how to put this without spoiling things ... but by now you probably know I have certain issues with books and movies and this came close to being too much. It's about a boy and his dog. A boy and his dog, she said, pointedly.
Grade: A++
Recommended: Strongly to anyone who likes YA science fiction, I would say there's a little His Dark Materials influence (although, so far, it's all sciencey and not magicky), there's also something that reminds me of Lois Lowry's The Giver -- which is a little funny, because my opinion of The Giver is a little lukewarm, and I'm very mixed about Pullman in general. It does have a fair amount of rather explicit violence, but it's not at all gratuitous -- it's all very real and emotional and intrinsic to the story.
This is so terrific and gripping and intense. It got like a million prizes when it was released last year in the U.K. although I haven't seen much about it over here. Soft science fiction, Todd is a thirteen year old boy growing up in a colony on another planet where
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men can now hear each other's thoughts, to the extent that they are essentially unable to have any private thoughts at all. Other than that, it's a fairly rustic colonial existence, with a lot of hard work and not much education or luxury (it vaguely reminded me of Australia, with the sheep farming). Also, animals can talk, although we learn from the very first page that this isn't as exciting as one might imagine and the first thing we hear from the dog is "Poo. Poo, Todd." As things tend to go with this sort of thing, Todd discovers that he has grown up not knowing the truth about the early years of the colony and that darker things are afoot.It is supposed to be a trilogy and it doesn't stand on its own, so I'm cautiously looking forward to reading the second one which just came out.
And I'm not quite sure how to put this without spoiling things ... but by now you probably know I have certain issues with books and movies and this came close to being too much. It's about a boy and his dog. A boy and his dog, she said, pointedly.
Grade: A++
Recommended: Strongly to anyone who likes YA science fiction, I would say there's a little His Dark Materials influence (although, so far, it's all sciencey and not magicky), there's also something that reminds me of Lois Lowry's The Giver -- which is a little funny, because my opinion of The Giver is a little lukewarm, and I'm very mixed about Pullman in general. It does have a fair amount of rather explicit violence, but it's not at all gratuitous -- it's all very real and emotional and intrinsic to the story.
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LibraryThing member WinterFox
One of the things that I find the most troublesome about our lives being so available on line to everyone else is that it just cuts down so much on what you can talk about. When you’ve put your thoughts out there, and what you’ve been up to, conversations with your friends in person often
This problem makes for a very rich entrée into some nice sci-fi dystopian fiction, as the first volume of Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, the Knife of Never Letting Go, shows. It tells us the story of Todd Hewitt, the last boy in Prentisstown, a colony on a New World. Here, in this world, a virus has caused all the animals to be able to talk, and all men to be surrounded by their own Noise, a broadcast of their thoughts, images and words alike. The same virus has led to the death of all the women in the town, and the world seems a bleak place. Bleak and cacophonous, all the thoughts and words of everyone else threatening to overwhelm you. Until one day, when Todd goes into the swamp near town with his dog Manchee, and finds a zone of cool silence, a scary but intriguing place… and it turns out that what lies at the heart of that zone is a girl. And thus our story begins.
What follows is a gripping, fast-moving tale that sees Todd, the girl, and Manchee fleeing across the face of this new planet, and learning that even in a world where you can see people’s thoughts, it’s still a struggle to communicate and understand people; it’s also just hard to find a place to be safe and call your own. The story itself is largely a quest, trying to find a haven, while being pursued by forces who want you to be more like them, both religious and political. They meet a variety of people along the journey, and the small group is faced with some tough choices – how do you connect and cope in the face of massive change? How much violence can you accept, and towards who and what? And how much redemption is there for your choices?
The characterization of the main small group, and of the main villain for this part of the trilogy, a religious figure from Todd’s hometown, is quite strong, and the writing is really amazingly well done, largely being given from Todd’s stream of consciousness responses to the world, which can just as well hide as reveal things, depending on how ready he is to deal with them or hear them, but also, since they’re available to the world around him, you can see the other characters respond to the stream, the same way you do. It makes the story feel more immediate and fresh; it’s a style I hadn’t seen before, and Ness pulls it off very well.
The thematic structure here, of what it means to know people and to find your place in the world, what it means to make choices and have to live with them, is very powerful, as well as that of dealing with relations between the sexes; the whole book is just rich and well-told. You really get into Todd’s emotional, sometimes misguided, sometimes ignorant, mostly well-meaning head, and get to interact with the world as he sees it. And it is an amazing, harrowing place to be, when there’s so much people can know about you by just looking, and how little. I’ve been drawing out the wait a bit for reading the next volume in this series, but I won’t be waiting too much longer, and you definitely shouldn’t wait to try this one.
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don’t really get flowing, because they’ve already heard what you’ve been up to and what you thought about it. So much about one another comes as already read, and then, paradoxically, it can be harder to make connections with people, and get below that layer to see what they’re really like, what they really feel.This problem makes for a very rich entrée into some nice sci-fi dystopian fiction, as the first volume of Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, the Knife of Never Letting Go, shows. It tells us the story of Todd Hewitt, the last boy in Prentisstown, a colony on a New World. Here, in this world, a virus has caused all the animals to be able to talk, and all men to be surrounded by their own Noise, a broadcast of their thoughts, images and words alike. The same virus has led to the death of all the women in the town, and the world seems a bleak place. Bleak and cacophonous, all the thoughts and words of everyone else threatening to overwhelm you. Until one day, when Todd goes into the swamp near town with his dog Manchee, and finds a zone of cool silence, a scary but intriguing place… and it turns out that what lies at the heart of that zone is a girl. And thus our story begins.
What follows is a gripping, fast-moving tale that sees Todd, the girl, and Manchee fleeing across the face of this new planet, and learning that even in a world where you can see people’s thoughts, it’s still a struggle to communicate and understand people; it’s also just hard to find a place to be safe and call your own. The story itself is largely a quest, trying to find a haven, while being pursued by forces who want you to be more like them, both religious and political. They meet a variety of people along the journey, and the small group is faced with some tough choices – how do you connect and cope in the face of massive change? How much violence can you accept, and towards who and what? And how much redemption is there for your choices?
The characterization of the main small group, and of the main villain for this part of the trilogy, a religious figure from Todd’s hometown, is quite strong, and the writing is really amazingly well done, largely being given from Todd’s stream of consciousness responses to the world, which can just as well hide as reveal things, depending on how ready he is to deal with them or hear them, but also, since they’re available to the world around him, you can see the other characters respond to the stream, the same way you do. It makes the story feel more immediate and fresh; it’s a style I hadn’t seen before, and Ness pulls it off very well.
The thematic structure here, of what it means to know people and to find your place in the world, what it means to make choices and have to live with them, is very powerful, as well as that of dealing with relations between the sexes; the whole book is just rich and well-told. You really get into Todd’s emotional, sometimes misguided, sometimes ignorant, mostly well-meaning head, and get to interact with the world as he sees it. And it is an amazing, harrowing place to be, when there’s so much people can know about you by just looking, and how little. I’ve been drawing out the wait a bit for reading the next volume in this series, but I won’t be waiting too much longer, and you definitely shouldn’t wait to try this one.
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LibraryThing member wkeblejr
synopsis:
Young, illiterate Todd Hewitt lives in a world where the noise germ has taken hold, supposedly released by the Spackle (New Worlds natives), which not only killed all the women in the world but released the thoughts of everyone, man and beast alike into the world. What seems like another
Review:
I gave this a 3.5/5 mostly because I couldn't get into it. There were so many times that I wanted to really attach myself to the story or characters but something just didn't fit with me. I was incredibly bothered when
***spoiler***
Todd killed the Spackle, it just seemed so completely out of character for him at that point in the story.
***end spoiler***
There were several things that reconciled this book for me, even thought I only feel a loose connection to the characters, and those things primarily had to do with the way the characters developed in relationship with each other. I thought that his tremendous growth with Manchee was beautiful and I was very upset that
***spoiler***
Manchee was killed by Aaron... dick...
***end spoiler***
I also thought that his eventual falling in love with Viola was, while rather obvious, nice and not too overbearing with the way the author wrote it. There is a lot of violence throughout the book, and while some things are described rather graphically, I give it a pardon because of the nature of the book. It's a book with a giant knife on the front of it and the title very much points towards those same lines. I didn't, as some other reviewers found, it to be superfluous. I bought the second one hoping I'll form a better connection with the characters, and it left me with enough of a cliff hanger that I'll spend the five bucks to find out.
Young, illiterate Todd Hewitt lives in a world where the noise germ has taken hold, supposedly released by the Spackle (New Worlds natives), which not only killed all the women in the world but released the thoughts of everyone, man and beast alike into the world. What seems like another
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typical day on the farm in Prentice Town is anything but when Todd discovers a "quiet" in the swamps that belongs to... a girl. Everything Todd has known to be true is suddenly called into question as he must flee to the neighboring village with his dog Manchee and this girl in hopes of stopping the madness of Prentice Town.Review:
I gave this a 3.5/5 mostly because I couldn't get into it. There were so many times that I wanted to really attach myself to the story or characters but something just didn't fit with me. I was incredibly bothered when
***spoiler***
Todd killed the Spackle, it just seemed so completely out of character for him at that point in the story.
***end spoiler***
There were several things that reconciled this book for me, even thought I only feel a loose connection to the characters, and those things primarily had to do with the way the characters developed in relationship with each other. I thought that his tremendous growth with Manchee was beautiful and I was very upset that
***spoiler***
Manchee was killed by Aaron... dick...
***end spoiler***
I also thought that his eventual falling in love with Viola was, while rather obvious, nice and not too overbearing with the way the author wrote it. There is a lot of violence throughout the book, and while some things are described rather graphically, I give it a pardon because of the nature of the book. It's a book with a giant knife on the front of it and the title very much points towards those same lines. I didn't, as some other reviewers found, it to be superfluous. I bought the second one hoping I'll form a better connection with the characters, and it left me with enough of a cliff hanger that I'll spend the five bucks to find out.
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LibraryThing member jhughes84
This book takes place in a society where all the women are dead and the men can hear everyone's thoughts or "Noise," EVEN the animals! Our main characters are Todd, a boy on the edge of becoming a man (and a constant countdown too!), Manchee a simple but loyal dog that gives humor to the story, and
I loved this books, Ness does an excellent job of making you love the characters *in my case my favorite was Manchee* or absolutely loan them *I cannot hear the name Aaron without feeling a surge of hatred* There were parts where I was laughing and parts where I cried for a couple days. I will warn you though, this book will leave you with what I consider the monster of all cliffhangers!
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Viola a *gasp!* girl from a different world whose families ship crash lands just outside of Todd's town. When Todd is out in the swamp looking for supplies for Ben *one of his guardians* he hears silence which is something not heard.. ever. He and Manchee follow the silence until he comes upon Viola (a girl and someone who doesn't have the Noise). Todd tries to hide this knowledge, but in a town where everyone can know your every thought he is not successful. Now Todd, Manchee, and Viola are on the run from almost his entire town.I loved this books, Ness does an excellent job of making you love the characters *in my case my favorite was Manchee* or absolutely loan them *I cannot hear the name Aaron without feeling a surge of hatred* There were parts where I was laughing and parts where I cried for a couple days. I will warn you though, this book will leave you with what I consider the monster of all cliffhangers!
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LibraryThing member booknerdreviews
SUCH an interesting read! I haven't read anything quite like it. It took me a little bit to become familiar with the writing style, which definitely has it's own flare! This book has it all though, characters you love and villains too!
Todd Hewitt! Wow... he really does do a lot of growing in this
If I am honest, I probably didn't love Viola's character as much? I think she was great as far as companions go, and I liked her backstory, but I didn't connect to her on an emotional level like I ended up feeling about Todd.
Manchee. Oh Manchee. My love for him started with "Poo, Todd?". It reminds me of my dog. lol
And Aaron!! Oh my.... I haven't had so much hate and disgust for a character for a long long time! Stop coming back to life Aaron! Sheesh. Stay down already!
There are so many things that excite me about this book, because I know it's leading on to bigger and better things. At times it broke my heart, at other times it was a bit more cruisy (being the first of 3 books, a lot of it was setting the story up), and then there were some amazing action scenes in it also that had me turning page after page and hoping that it wasn't going to end badly.
I don't talk much about the ACTUAL story line in this review because it's one of those story that builds and builds and if I say something about one part it could possibly end up a spoiler of sorts, but the story line itself is solid and captivating.
I am really looking forward to reading the sequel The Ask and The Answer, which I will be starting shortly. Patrick Ness has done such an amazing book in creating these wonderfully detailed characters that you litterally love or hate.
Todd Hewitt! Wow... he really does do a lot of growing in this
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book. And more than just the litteral translation of that (I am going to be a man in 30 days business), he starts off as a naive boy. Someone who believes everything he has been told about Prentisstown. He is sheltered and ignorant and I even think a little bit unlikeable to start off with. I start off loving Manchee way more than I liked Todd. He evolves throughout the story, becoming stronger, braver and more mature and he really blossums into someone you feel very protective of.If I am honest, I probably didn't love Viola's character as much? I think she was great as far as companions go, and I liked her backstory, but I didn't connect to her on an emotional level like I ended up feeling about Todd.
Manchee. Oh Manchee. My love for him started with "Poo, Todd?". It reminds me of my dog. lol
And Aaron!! Oh my.... I haven't had so much hate and disgust for a character for a long long time! Stop coming back to life Aaron! Sheesh. Stay down already!
There are so many things that excite me about this book, because I know it's leading on to bigger and better things. At times it broke my heart, at other times it was a bit more cruisy (being the first of 3 books, a lot of it was setting the story up), and then there were some amazing action scenes in it also that had me turning page after page and hoping that it wasn't going to end badly.
I don't talk much about the ACTUAL story line in this review because it's one of those story that builds and builds and if I say something about one part it could possibly end up a spoiler of sorts, but the story line itself is solid and captivating.
I am really looking forward to reading the sequel The Ask and The Answer, which I will be starting shortly. Patrick Ness has done such an amazing book in creating these wonderfully detailed characters that you litterally love or hate.
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LibraryThing member booksandwine
I am an evangelist for The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Seriously, you shouldn't even be reading my review. You should be reading The Knife of Never Letting Go instead. The book starts off on an incredibly confusing note. You are just sort of tossed into Todd's world. However, when
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this happens, don't be discouraged, dear friend. Just trust the author. I am pretty sure for the most part, authors know what they are doing. Seriously, all will be explained and revealed. The Knife of Never Letting go is definitely a new-to-me take on dystopia. First of all, we are in a world where your every thought is public. I mean how much would life suck if your thoughts weren't private. You wouldn't have any secrets. It would be hard to be polite, because people would definitely know you don't like them. I know I couldn't stand something like that. The crazy government scary dude in charge part, that is not new to me at all. However, it's the premise that is unique.Todd is a character whom I just want to hug. Life definitely deals Todd a bad card. He's an orphan. He's the youngest guy in Prentisstown, and has yet to go through his manhood rights. And of course, he is the hero of our tale, so you know, bad stuff will happen to Todd and he will grow and learn from it, because guys, that's what happens to every main character, in pretty much every single book ever. Well, maybe that's a bit of a broad sweeping untrue generalization, but chances are if it is a book I enjoyed, something bad has happened to the main character. Right, well I still just want to give Todd a hug.Now, my absolute favorite part of the book was Manchee. As far as dogs go, I love them. And yes, Manchee was my favorite character of the book. He is exactly how I imagine a dog would talk. He says things the pups we have here would probably say if they could talk. Now, that I have characters I liked out of the way, I want to talk about a character I could not stand. There's this crazy character named Aaron. He is the bionic man, I swear to God. I honestly got frustrated and irritated and annoyed every time he showed up. He never ever died. He always brought trouble. I just, agh, dreaded him. You'll see why when you read this book.However, this is all tempered with a small thread of hope. Although, it seems like it's consistently attempting to be extinguished, hope always remains, and I appreciate that. After all, it is such an important thing to hold on to. Here, let me show you this heart gripping quote:"You've overcome obstacles and dangers and things that should've killed you. You've outrun an army and a madman and deadly illness and seen things most people will never see. How do you think you could possibly come this far if you didn't have hope?" -pg. 376and this"....and I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, too, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare to the world and when has the world let us win a dare?" pg. 423 Yeah, enough said on hope.Back to things that annoy me. I keep pushing this book on my boyfriend to read, but he refuses to read it. How irritating right? When you could really bond with someone you love over a book, yet they refuse to take your suggestion. Finally, I am dying to read The Ask And The Answer, however I am waiting for the PB to come out in August, because I like my series to have similar formats. I already have a copy of Monsters and Men to read, so yes, it really is eager waiting until August, and knowing myself I will probably break down and buy the hardback regardless. Show Less
LibraryThing member PhoebeReading
Three quarters of my way through Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go, the first book of his Chaos Walking trilogy, I wanted to marry it. Of course, I’m a sucker for science fiction for teens. And space-based sci-fi is rare in young adult literature these days; well-executed space-based
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sci-fi, even rarer. So I was ecstatic to read how Ness hit several of my pet themes—an isolated extra-Sol space colony, an alien race, the dangers of a non-Terran environment—and then executed them nearly perfectly. Even better, The Knife of Never Letting Go is told largely in vernacular, via the voice of young colonist Todd Hewitt. Todd’s narration is rough, but readable—like a more accessible, teen-friendly version of Russell Hoban’s post apocalyptic classic, Riddley Walker.Through Todd’s perspective, we’re introduced to his world: Prentisstown, a colony where all the women have died and where all the remaining men can hear one another’s thoughts. Ness clearly has fun with his world building, and does a good job of creating Todd’s claustrophobic, often intruded-upon world. The various voices are rendered in different fonts, a conceit which may have come across as gimmicky if used by a less capable writer, but here it merely lends to the appropriately chaotic feeling of the world; I’m glad I bought the paper, rather than e-book version.From the outset, Todd is believably flawed and complex. Equally engaging was his primary companion, his talking dog, Manchee. Ness captures the canine voice so well that I’m sure Ness must be a dog owner.Less expertly handled were some of the supporting characters. Todd eventually comes to travel with Viola, a girl who has fallen from a nearby generation ship. While she’s meant to be somewhat of a cipher to Todd, as the only person he’s ever met whose mind he cannot read, I never felt that I truly understood her, either. Likewise, the book’s villains were simplistic, more like stock characters than believable threats. But my real problem with The Knife of Never Letting Go--and the reason you haven’t heard any wedding bells, not yet--came with the ending. I’ll say this: I saw Manchee’s death coming from the moment he was introduced. Ness goes for the same cheap tears that authors of boy-and-his-dog stories have defaulted to for decades, but unlike in some of the classics of that narrow genre--Where the Red Fern Grows comes immediately to mind--it felt a little unearned and, worse, like a bit of a violation. The book rapidly began to deflate in Manchee’s absence and while I understand what Ness was trying to accomplish thematically--representing Todd’s movement into independent manhood--I just didn’t like it. Manchee’s sympathetic character was such a strong draw through most of the novel that I honestly have trouble imagining reading a second volume without him. And I wonder if his absence, and the constant, niggling worry about where the damn dog was, and whether he was okay, helped to expose the novel’s more significant flaws. Because in the final fifth of this thick volume, it really all falls apart. We learn why Todd’s been pursued through the entirety of the action, but the specifics seemed implausible, convenient, and altogether too neat. Instead of concrete answers, answers we can believe in, we’re given needlessly protracted fight scenes and stock villain climaxes. And so I finished my reading with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Though I genuinely enjoyed almost the whole novel, the ending was so unsatisfying that it tainted the entire experience. That’s too bad, because what Ness attempts to do here—and what he could have done for YA sci-fi--is pretty close to my ideal. But in the end, he just doesn’t quite hack it. Ruddy dead dog. Show Less
LibraryThing member atreic
It is very hard to review this book, as it is so clearly the first part of a trilogy, and ends on a complete cliffhanger.
But it is in the best tradition of high Young Adult fiction, that The Hunger Games and His Dark Materials do so well. It is a breathtaking page turning adventure, where the hero
The plot is gripping, the reveals moving even when read as a cynical and critical 30 year old who thinks they know where the story is going, and the book does not pull its punches, with some grizzly moments to rival the worse horror and tragic scenes that made me well up.
The hero shouldn't appeal to me at all - an uneducated angry and impulsive young man, who speaks in clumsy colloquialisms - and it's a testamont to the strength of the writing that I now care so much about Todd.
The ideas - settlers on an alian planet, the aftereffects of war, living with atrocity, what would it be like if we could read thoughts, the role of women in society, how we shouldn't trust the truth as it is presented to us - are not new ones, but they are woven together strongly and powerfully.
Anyway, I am desperate to read the rest, so will not spend any longer on this review!
But it is in the best tradition of high Young Adult fiction, that The Hunger Games and His Dark Materials do so well. It is a breathtaking page turning adventure, where the hero
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Todd discovers many things about trust and deceit.The plot is gripping, the reveals moving even when read as a cynical and critical 30 year old who thinks they know where the story is going, and the book does not pull its punches, with some grizzly moments to rival the worse horror and tragic scenes that made me well up.
The hero shouldn't appeal to me at all - an uneducated angry and impulsive young man, who speaks in clumsy colloquialisms - and it's a testamont to the strength of the writing that I now care so much about Todd.
The ideas - settlers on an alian planet, the aftereffects of war, living with atrocity, what would it be like if we could read thoughts, the role of women in society, how we shouldn't trust the truth as it is presented to us - are not new ones, but they are woven together strongly and powerfully.
Anyway, I am desperate to read the rest, so will not spend any longer on this review!
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness is one of the most surprising books I have read this year. I was expecting an average dystopian book but this one was different, and different in ways that I have decided not to go into as I don’t want to spoil it for future readers. I totally fell
I first met Patrick Ness through his deeply touching story, A Monster Calls, so I already knew what a skilled writer he is. At first I was a little put off by the style he chose to write this story in, but I realized quickly that this helps the reader to fit into Todd’s world and the conditions one finds there. Some of the characters are a little over-done but of course, I did totally lose my heart to the dim-witted but wonderful Manchee. A small note of warning however, there is a fair amount of violence and cruelty portrayed and I would suggest this book is aimed at the older end of the YA spectrum.
Without going into a lot of plot details, The Knife of Never Letting Go is a great adventure story that is presented in an inventive and original writing style. But, and this is a big but, the reader is left totally hanging at the end of the book. I need to immediately get my hands on book number two in order to find out how this story ends. I absolutely enjoyed the book as I was reading it, but feel cheated by it’s total lack of closure. I think the author could have resolved some of the immediate issues in this volume and would still have had plenty of material for the next book.
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into this story and was absorbed and fascinated by the world this author so painstaking created.I first met Patrick Ness through his deeply touching story, A Monster Calls, so I already knew what a skilled writer he is. At first I was a little put off by the style he chose to write this story in, but I realized quickly that this helps the reader to fit into Todd’s world and the conditions one finds there. Some of the characters are a little over-done but of course, I did totally lose my heart to the dim-witted but wonderful Manchee. A small note of warning however, there is a fair amount of violence and cruelty portrayed and I would suggest this book is aimed at the older end of the YA spectrum.
Without going into a lot of plot details, The Knife of Never Letting Go is a great adventure story that is presented in an inventive and original writing style. But, and this is a big but, the reader is left totally hanging at the end of the book. I need to immediately get my hands on book number two in order to find out how this story ends. I absolutely enjoyed the book as I was reading it, but feel cheated by it’s total lack of closure. I think the author could have resolved some of the immediate issues in this volume and would still have had plenty of material for the next book.
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Subjects
Awards
Locus Award (Nominee — Young Adult Novel — 2009)
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award (Nominee — 2012)
Green Mountain Book Award (Nominee — 2012)
USBBY Outstanding International Book (Grades 9-12 — 2009)
Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (Winner — 2008)
South Dakota Teen Choice Book Awards (Nominee — 2011)
Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing (Nominee — 2009)
Otherwise Award (Winner — 2008)
Virginia Readers' Choice (Nominee — High School — 2012)
Milwaukee County Teen Book Award (Nominee — 2010)
Booktrust Teenage Prize (Winner — 2008)
Odyssey Award (Honor — 2011)
Branford Boase Award (Shortlist — 2009)
Locus Recommended Reading (Young Adult — 2008)
Best Fiction for Young Adults (Selection — 2009)
CCBC Choices (2009)
ALA Outstanding Books for the College Bound (Science and Technology)
Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults (Top Ten — 2011)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2008
Physical description
8.56 inches
ISBN
0763676187 / 9780763676186
UPC
884226091932