Published in The Student Standard, 13 October 2008.
A killer read set on another planet with animals that talk, where you can hear the “Noise” of other people’s thoughts.
“Challenging but not bleak” that’s what the judges of the Guardian Children’s Book of the Year called this astounding book that won the award. Although aimed at young adults (12-18 year olds) anyone will enjoy this book, it’s also a really good choice for boys. I heartily recommend it – it’ll make you laugh out loud.
The book has one of the best openings ever:
The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.
“Need a poo, Todd.”
“Shut it, Manchee.”
“Poo. Poo, Todd.”
Isn’t that great? Patrick Ness manages to capture the innocence and eagerness of dogs in a few simple lines. Manchee goes on with classic lines like:
“Squirrel, Todd! Squirrel!”
Todd is the only boy in a village of men. He lives in a world where you can hear everything that everyone thinks. And all the animals can speak too. The settlers came to start a new, God-fearing life far away from the overcrowded Earth. After a mysterious disease, all the women died and the men survived. But they are all angry … and hiding something.
Todd is fast approaching the day when he becomes a man, it’s significant because he is the last one in his village to do so. What will the men tell him? What are they holding back? What will send Todd and his trusty dog Manchee on the run? But how can they run when their pursuers can hear their thoughts?
Patrick Ness paints a believable frontier world that is harsh and religious. His depiction of “Noise,” being able to hear everyone’s thoughts, is really fun. Words scrawl over the book and overlap each other, giving you a feel for what Todd and the others’ experience.
The book is a combination of adventure and science fiction. There are fallen spaceships, horse chases and a long desperate run for safety. Todd’s life gets turned upside down and its easy to identify with him and his plight. Todd faces difficult decisions and constantly fights with a knife that urges him to do violence.
The conversational writing style and non-stop action make this a real page turner. You’ll be riveted from start to finish.
Ness told the Guardian:
“This story felt like something that’s got to be really gone for, really shouted out from the rafters, and teenage fiction is where you can do that and still not be shoved into genre. In its most basic form it’s about information overload, the sense that the world is so very, very loud. Then I took the next logical step of what if you couldn’t get away.”
The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first in a trilogy called Chaos Walking. The second book will be published next May and Ness is working on the third.
The Knife of Never Letting Go
by Patrick Ness
Walker Books, Published 5 May 2008
