The Knife of Never Letting Go

title: The Knife of Never Letting Go
author: Patrick Ness
how I read it: epub from the public library

Young Todd Hewitt lives in Prentisstown, a small settlement on New World. He was born there, and he knows nothing other than the world he lives in: a world where a Noise germ has infected people so that animals can speak and men hear each others' every thought. Todd is a lonely boy on the brink of manhood in a mysterious and aggressive village.

(Please don't be dissuaded by the talking animals. These animals "talk" the way that real animals might, words and pictures about whatever it is that they happen to be doing. Imagine a predator breathing "flesh" and "teeth" and "eat" while it watches you from beneath the water. These are not the whimsical talking animals found far too often in children's picture books.)

I will tell you no more than this. I started reading this book knowing nothing about it, and I'm convinced that it's best to go into this book with very little prior knowledge. As Todd learned more about his world, I learned alongside him; I believe that this made the book even more intriguing and fascinating. While many of the mysteries were really not all that surprising to me once they were revealed, I was still engaged and invested in Todd's sense of shock at all that he learned.

The author made some stylistic choices that I didn't love at first. I'm not a huge fan of books written in dialect, and although I was able to stop noticing the "yer"s and "tho"s after the first chapter, words like "attenshun" grated on me each time I read them. Maybe it's my own accent - but I really don't see that "attenshun" sounds all that different from "attention".

Still, other stylistic choices worked extremely well. This story is told in the first person, and Todd's voice is very strong. He is uneducated, innocent, stubborn, far less sure than he claims to be and utterly, utterly believable. The run-on sentences read like well-constructed streams of consciousness when Todd is confused or frightened. The cut-off sentences during action sequences added to the tension and suspense; I found myself breathless, my eyes skipping over each cut-off line to find out what would happen.

Overall, this is a fantastic book. It is very well-paced and the author is a gifted wordsmith. The story is original and thought-provoking. The themes that this book grapples with are huge: gender politics, individualism, privacy, religious fundamentalism, the atrocities of war. At its heart, this book is a strong and true coming of age story, with likable characters and an exciting plot that keeps you guessing.

Unfortunately, the last few pages of this book soured my reading experience a bit. Like many other young adult science fiction books, this book is the first installment in a trilogy (Chaos Walking Trilogy). While I am thrilled to know that there are two more books waiting for me, that doesn't lessen my disappointment in the utter lack of closure at the end of this book. The book doesn't end. It stops suddenly on a cliffhanger, one of my pet peeves in young adult speculative fiction. As I've mentioned before, I like to decide for myself to read a sequel, not feel manipulated by a story that doesn't even hint at an end. And to be honest, this ending felt a bit like a new TV series that ends on a cliffhanger in hopes that the series will be picked up for another year.

That said, I will absolutely read the next book. I became very emotionally invested in this book. My heart pounded at the scary parts, I laughed out loud a few times, and I actually cried - a true rarity for me. I have to find out what's going to happen to Todd and his friend!

This book made me want to: hug my dog. And my Mom.

Verdict: Original and compelling story. Had it ended, I would have said that I highly recommend this book to any and all. As it stands, I recommend it, but only after making clear my disappointment with the lack of closure.

Sequels: The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men