Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

Okay. Deep breaths, Adela. You will survive this, I tell you. You WILL.

I started reading this trilogy because my friend recommended it to me and let me borrow her copies. She said she thought I would like it because of how much I liked The Hunger Games.

Wow. It's really hard to describe my feelings for The Knife of Never Letting Go. I guess they are quite similar to the way I feel about The Hunger Games, in that I don't know what to say or how to explain anything to you.

New World is a terrifying yet remarkably...unremarkable place (I mean the planet itself). The Prentisstown men are truly terrifying (you know who I mean by them, obviously not Ben or Cillian or all of the ones who "disappeared"). Aaron. Eugh. Reading the parts about him almost made me feel sick, I mean... he just wouldn't die and the gore was like.. eugh.

But anyway. I must say that I absolutely ADORE Todd. I think Todd is just... there's no other word to describe it, I just think he's adorable. I love how unsure of himself he is and self-conscious and everything and every time he says (shut up) in brackets I feel like crying. Because it's like he's warning us, the readers, not to laugh at him for being scared, or backing away, or not being able to read, or whatever. And Viola... I love Viola too. And the way their relationship develops is just OH GOD I CAN'T HANDLE THE CUTENESS. They're just.. so.. they're just KIDS. And it's so CUTE. Okay. Also everything that Todd felt, I felt. When he felt peaceful and quiet, so did I. When he felt anger, so did I. When he was overflowing with shame from killing that innocent Spackle, I felt it too. It wasn't very pleasant. But I felt it. Which is obviously a mark of an amazing author.

Now. Manchee. Manchemancheemanchee. Best supporting character/sidekick ever. "Todd?" "Todd?" "This way, Todd." "Poo, Todd." "Squirrel!" "Todd?" "Todd?" "Todd?" Okay I'm stopping now I swear but just I CRIED SO MUCH OKAY. On the inside though, because I was sitting in the middle of the hallway outside my first class, surrounded by my dance classmates, and I didn't want to burst into tears in front of them.

I have a couple of favourite parts. One of my most favourite parts is when they travel by cart through the "sea" of giant elephant-rhino-cow-alien creatures, and they're just surrounded with constant repetitions of the word "Here". It just made me feel so at peace. And I absolutely love the idea of those creatures and how their entire existence comes down to the wonder and the joy and the love of being HERE, right now, nowhere else, completely present in every moment.

Another favourite part, though also very emotional, was after the ordeal with Aaron in the cave, right before Davy Prentiss comes, when Todd is just holding Viola and letting her "shake as much as she needs to" because she's in shock and just... they're just so... but then Mr. Prentiss Junior had to show up and ruin everything, of course.

The whole book was so fast paced, it felt really short. Which doesn't make sense because it took me a long time to read it. The way the action is written is so different than anything I'm used to--

With all the--

and--

and the--

(you know, stuff like that). There is also A LOT of running in this book, so maybe that has something to do with it.

We run.

We keep running.

We run some more.

And on we go.

And on.

I think some people might find that particular aspect kind of annoying, but I think it's just Todd willing himself not to stop. And I can just imagine him telling the story, saying, "We ran. And ran. And ran. And kept on running. Because if we stopped, they would find us."

Oh, I suppose before I finish I ought to say a little something about the writing style--rather, the spelling. It only took me a few pages or so to get used to poor illiterate Todd narrating with words like "thru" and "tho" and "tradishun" and "speckalashun". And other words like "ain't" and "twixt"--that was one that caught my eye a whole bunch of times, because he never uses the word "between". It's always "twixt".

Anyway. It's really really really really good. And I've just started reading the second one, The Ask and the Answer, and I just

need to know

what's going to happen. It's so stressful.

Oh my God, I totally forgot to talk about Noise!! The Noise is such a huge part of the book. Well basically what it has done is caused me to fear a couple times when kind of zoning out, thinking WHAT IF PEOPLE CAN HEAR MY NOISE. WHAT IF THERE'S SOMEONE WHO CAN HEAR WHAT I'M THINKING RIGHT NOW. And then my heart skips a beat before I remind myself that that's impossible. IMPOSSIBLE, ADELA, DON'T THINK ABOUT IT.