Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

"Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee -- whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not -- stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden -- a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?"

Title: The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1)

Author: Patrick Ness

Release Date: May 5, 2008

Publisher: Walker

Pages: 496, Hardcover (Read: Kindle Edition)

"And there's yer lesson. There ain't nothing good that don't got real bad waiting to follow it."-The Knife of Never Letting Go, pg. 216

The Knife of Never Letting Go wasn't on my radar until I watched Priscilla from The Readables' video review. After watching the review, I KNEW I had to read The Knife of Never Letting Go. Dystopian, action-packed, a male's POV--and, what? Hardly any romance. You'd think that I would shy away from this book because of the lack of romance, since it's certainly out of my comfort zone. However, something about this different dystopian world caught my eye. Truth be told, The Knife of Never Letting Go certainly did not disappoint.

First off, creativity. THE FREAKING CREATIVITY. Patrick Ness, you are a man of imagination. I believe that this series was published a little before dystopian novels became "the new thing", so it's definitely different than all of the others. In Todd Hewitt's world, their world is named New World. This is the new planet they live on, where as our world, Old World, is destroyed and terrible. Todd Hewitt lives in Prentisstown with Ben and Cillian, his two guardians. The most important things: everyone can hear every living thing's thoughts. The Noise. Todd Hewitt is the last boy (not yet man) in Prentisstown. And there are no women alive in Prentisstown.

When Todd Hewitt finds a "hole" in the Noise, he is suddenly in deep trouble, and is on the run. He is accompanied by Manchee (SO ADORBS. Totally reminds me of the dog from the movie "Up"!). Todd Hewitts meets some different people along the way, and is soon accompanied by Viola, a girl. From there, the story takes off into an action-packed adventure and discovery.

I loved the plot. But at some parts in the story, I found that it became a little repetitive. But that's totally fine, because it hardly bothered me. Each place on New World was different and creative and I LOVED IT. The characters, were PERFECT. Not perfect of course, but very well-developed. The bad guys were perfectly mean and naaasty. Todd, Viola, and Manchee are very cooperative and everything fit very well together, like a puzzle piece. The characters were just simply great.

*There is a pre-short story that is called The New World which is about Viola's time on the ship, before she arrived to New World. I think that it is not necessary to read it, but it definitely gave me a better understanding of Viola's character and personality*

There is something else that is unique about The Knife of Never Letting Go: the language. When I first started reading, I thought they were typos. Haha. Nope, they are the language/spelling of Prentisstown. For example, "station" would be spelled "stayshun". It took awhile to get used to, but after a while you get used to it and it not longer is a nuisance.

I cannot wait to see what's next. The Knife of Never Letting Go kind of left on a cliffhanger, so I'm definitely eager to see what happens in the next installment, The Ask and the Answer. I recommend this to everyone who likes a dystopian that is action-packed with no romance involved. Definitely different (in a good way)!