Jenna Likes to Read

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Posted on 21 February 2010

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, Bk 1) by Patrick Ness

Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him — something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn’t she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd’s gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.

This is a fantastic book!  I was a little put off by the language and phonetic spellings, but it didn’t take long to be so into the story that I stopped noticing them.  The book is a gripping adventure that is hard to put down.  Something is always going on, with new questions being raised that challenge the things that Todd has taken as facts his whole life.  The questions were a little frustrating sometimes.  I felt like the reader was not getting any answers for over half the book and I was starting to feel like it was the book was just one big chase scene.  I did figure some parts out, and eventually things began to unfold – questions were answered and Todd and “the girl” grew into really interesting and likable characters.

There were a couple times that I got a little frustrated with the book (a character that just won’t die, a character that conveniently shows up late in the story to explain things, and a couple others that might be too spoilery to share), but I never wanted to put it down.  And keep some tissues handy – I cried a couple times.