Rating:

5 out of 5


Series / Stand-alone: 
Book 1 of the Chaos Walking trilogy.


Synopsis (from the book cover):
Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown.

But Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a constant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets.

Or are there?

Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence.
Which is impossible.
Prentisstown has been lying to him.
And now he's going to have to run...

Astonishingly powerful and breathtakingly exciting, The Knife of Never Letting Go is an unflinching novel about the dangerous choices of growing up.


Review:
Oh, what can I say about this book? The printed acclaim for this novel is already overwhelming, with so many glowing reviews. I'm not one to usually pick my reads based on accolades, and this was no exception. This just happened to be on this really comprehensive YA dystopian reading list that I pulled off the net sometime back here. But boy oh boy, when I started reading this book, I could really see why it won multiple book prizes back in 2008.

I loved this book. In a landscape dominated by female writers, Patrick Ness provides a refreshing shot of testosterone with this trilogy. The action is snippy and pumping, yet not overly hurtling; there is its fair share of emotions, yet not simperingly sentimental; the characters are still shrouded in the innocence of childhood and discover the cruel choices that growing up entails. All in all, the novel is tightly controlled and finely balanced with all these converging elements, such that it all adds up to a wonderful concoction of heady exhiliration, heartbreak, and dry humour.

Thirteen-year-old Todd is at once tough and vulnerable, unsentimental and tender. His relationship with his faithful dog, Manchee, is the one that touched me most of all. I actually literally teared up at this juncture:

*SPOILER AHEAD*

'"Todd?" he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. "Todd?"
   "Manchee!" I scream.
   Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.
   "MANCHEE!"
   "Todd?"
   And Aaron wrenches his arms and there's a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.
   And the pain is too much it's too much it's too much and my hands are on my head and I'm rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that's inside me.'

As Todd learns that growing up is not easy, I re-learnt that too. Ness reminded me of how tough it is to grow up, how tough life is, even. As Todd tries his darndest to make it to Haven, kicking clawing and screaming his way there, I am reminded of my own struggle to make it to Heaven. Pun fully intended, I'm sure.

The entire novel is rife with symbolism and metaphor in spite of the intended young audience, that's its beauty.

By interspering the regular narrative with Noise demarcated by a less structured font, Ness does a mean job of making me feel like I actually know what it's like to hear the thoughts of men in Noise. Also, his clever manipulation of punctuation and repetition makes the characters' emotions palpable, which was very important for me in connecting with both the characters and the story itself.

In a genre already saturated with worlds in which so much is wrong and characters who are struggling to grow up, Todd's New World is one that stands out. Lies are unravelled and truth emerges as Todd grows up, and it is a poignant, witty, humorous, and heart-rending journey that you get to witness.

"Cuz the place yer a-leaving ain't worth staying for... Cuz the place yer a-leaving is so bad ye gotta leave."

Labels: Book Review, Dystopian, Futuristic, Sci-Fi, Young Adults

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Many things have caught my fancy in my twenty-four years of life in this world - hydrangea and calla lily posies, tea, blackberries, exploring Azeroth and beyond, and furry sneaky cheeky felines are but some of them. Nothing beats the feeling of being on the cusp of a Great Adventure, nevermind if the actual distance travelled is more like twenty miles rather than a hundred. There is, in my opinion, always more out there to be learnt, and there will never be enough time for me to ever do it all. When I'm not working like the good, obedient, compliant citizen that I am, I may be found with my nose deep in a book, sipping a cup of tea, running around free with some Elves or Worgen, attempting to build my empire and protecting it from the barbaric hordes, or out sourcing for worthy additions to my painstakingly put-together wardrobe. More relevantly to this blog, the literary genres that most captivate me are dystopian, fantasy, historical, post-modern and modern. I may read the occasional crime or realist novel, but I almost never can complete an auto-biography or romance fiction. I am contactable either by leaving a comment on one of my posts, or via email: kelly.ang [AT] gmail Please feel free to leave your own comment in return - I am very nice and would love to hear from fellow book-lovers :)