The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness AWESOME AUGUST WEEK ONE

AWESOME AUGUST DAY 3!!!!

The Knife of Never Letting Go
by Patrick Ness

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Recommended: If you liked the Dustlands series by Moira Young and sci-fi 

Review: 

"The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking."

Todd Hewitt lives in Prentisstown, a town where privacy is impossible. Every resident in the town of all men can hear each other’s thoughts. It’s not as simple as hearing the inner dialogue of everyone as if they’re talking; their thoughts come out in a choppy, unorganized stream of Noise. One afternoon, Todd and his dog Manchee (whose thoughts Todd can hear) come across a peculiar patch of Noiseless quiet in the swamp, and their lives change dramatically as they uncover dark secrets about Prentisstown and the men that live there. 

I haven’t read a real science fiction book in a long while. I’ve been reading lots of YA contemporaries or fantasy or even murder mystery. The Knife of Never Letting Go was a really great science fiction novel, and a welcome break from the novels that I’ve been reading recently. 

Something that I love when I’m reading a story, like many other do as well is something that sets it apart from others. Not necessarily in the actual content of the story (how many different ways can we spin angels/vampires/werewolves?) but in the actual telling of the story. In my review for Blood Red Road, I really talked about the fast paced way that the story is told, in both short, quick, dialogue, and also long run on sentences as thoughts. The Knife of Never Letting Go is told in a similar way. If you've read either of these books, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It really sets the tone for the story, and lets you get completely absorbed in it. I find that it makes the book stick out in my mind, and it helps you remember details from the story. Both series also had lots of symbolism and metaphors, that I love reading. Another unique factor was the Noise, and how it was written in different fonts. That was cool too.

Let’s also talk about the tone of the story. I said in my BookTube-A-Thon wrap up video that I had to take a break from my TBR to read Lola and the Boy Next Door because of how serious all the other books that I had been reading were. The Knife of Never Letting Go was the last book I read before I took a break; it was no exception to the Streak of Seriousness. My friend had read it before me, and she had said she needed to take a break before she read the sequel as well. It’s a fairly emotionally draining story, in my opinion. It’s certainly not a happy story, and it’s as if everything bad that could happen, happens. Nevertheless, it’s a good read, just not a fun one. 

I’m going to talk about some SPOILERS now, so BYE if you haven’t read the novel! 

Alright, I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I didn’t realize that New World was a literal NEW WORLD, until we heard about the Spackle. So it wasn’t very long, but it was long enough. I had just assumed it was a dystopian, and they always have weird names for places. BUT nope, it’s a completely different planet. Cool.  This means that technically, Todd, Viola, and all the other humans are the aliens.  Weird to think about. 

I thought it was hilarious that we could hear Manchee’s thoughts. That was a nice touch, and it was very funny because that’s exactly what dogs would sound like if they could talk. I was very sad when Manchee died because he was a happy component to the story. 

AARON! GEEZ. That man would NOT die. It was completely ridiculous, and almost comical, how around EVERY corner, he was there to stop Todd and Viola. It was SO annoying and it still seems like he’s not actually dead. Even though I am pretty sure that he is.

Prentisstown turned out to be the bad guys. That made Todd bad by association, even though he really didn’t know their awful history. And it really was awful. When we met Hildy, we start being suspect of the history of Prentisstown, and a sneaking suspicion built. When Todd and Viola are travelling through New World to Haven, they stop at many places along the way. It was interesting how every settlement had their own way of life that they’ve created for themselves, but one thing is in common: they ALL hate the Prentisstown men. 

That’s really all I’ve got to say about this novel. I enjoyed it quite a lot, and I’ve already started reading The Ask and the Answer. I would certainly recommend that you pick up this series, because it definitely lived up to the hype. 

Read on,

B