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A review by kellypm
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
5.0
Originally posted on my blog here -> https://kelmacsbooks.wordpress.com/
‘War makes monsters of men’
What a phenomenal novel oh my god! This book has set the bar so high for the rest of the series! I’ve read a few other books by Patrick Ness and this book has continued his quality writing and unique stories. (Spoilers throughout this whole review, sorry).
‘You can’t never leave me behind’… ‘Watch me’
When I first started reading this book, the spelling confused me and annoyed me a little bit, but then I got the setting of the book and the age of Todd, it ended up really adding to the book. There are words like ‘tho’, ‘situayshun’ and ‘explanayshun’, which is just the way someone who hadn’t been properly educated would spell them, and I give props to Patrick Ness for really sticking with the fact that Todd is barely educated and is still pretty young!
“Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”
The concept of this novel is extremely unique, and I feel like I didn’t really know what I was about to get myself into when I started reading it. This book was action packed, gory, utterly relatable and so intense I had to put it down a few times to just sort out how I was feeling. This novel is from the perspective of a boy named Todd who has been told lies his whole life. He believes a war killed all the women and there is only his town of horrible men left on the whole planet. Not only that, but when they first landed on New World, a germ made it so everyone could hear what each other was thinking all the time, and called it Noise. Prentisstown was a pretty horrid place, and had no morals whatsoever. The secret of when boys become men at the age of 13 was something that hung over the book for most of the time., and simultaneously I loved and hated it. I loved the suspense of not having confirmation, but I hated the fact that my inkling was right.
‘I’m tearing back and my mouth is open in a never ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside me’
When Todd and his loyal, yet simple dog Manchee stumble across a patch of silence, an insane string of events unravel and the plot thickens when they find out it’s a girl. The girl’s name is Viola and omg what a badass, she was a wonderful character to read and watch develop. This novel has so many things in it that could be taken the wrong way. For example; misogyny. As Viola and Todd run away from the oncoming army in search of Haven they come across a town. And in this town, women are second rate citizens and don’t get any kind of say. This kind of situation links back to our own history, and still in some places of the world noe. Women as second rate citizens. However, in this scene, not only did Viola step up and not let herself be pushed around, but Todd recognised her as her own person with opinions that matter and didn’t let her be excluded either. It’s from there that I really noticed the development of their relationship, and god was it a good one.
“We are the choices we make.”
At the start, there was a lot of hate from Todd towards Viola, and I feel like that is only because of the disgusting and disturbed town town that he grew up in, shrouded by lies his whole life. Once they started to work together and get to know each other, their friendship and devotion to each other and to keep each other safe and alive was such a beautiful thing to read. Ness has created a strong loving friendship, not a romantic relationship (which is good since they are young) and I just really appreciate him for that.
‘You listen to me and you’re happy, Todd Hewitt. We’ve spent all this time outrunning an army and guess what? We outran them’
I feel like, in books like these; dystopian-y types, there needs to be some underlying romance or something. And that is (one of many reasons) that sets this book apart from other dystopian books like Divergent and Hunger Games. The main character, Todd, is a 12/13 year old boy, the writing showed his original naïveté and we didn’t need a sub-plot relationship to continue the story along. But the concept of the series was unique, and the gripping and intense plot kept the story moving and made me never want to put the book down!
‘It’s like the song of a family where everything’s always all right, it’s a song of belonging that makes you belong just by hearing it, it’s a song that’ll always take care of you and never leave you. If you have a heart, it breaks, if you have a heart that’s broken, it fixes.’
But oh lordy did it do some things to my poor poor heart. If you’ve read it, you’ll know exactly what part I’m talking about and I’m not going to lie, I am still not over that. I mean, theres my heart over there in the corner in a puddle of tears.
“Here’s what I think,” I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my noise like whispers of truth. “I think maybe everybody falls,” I say. “I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.”
I pull on her arms gently to make sure she’s listening.
“I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”
And finally the villain; the asshat that never dies! Aaron was such an unlikable character. From the first time he was mentioned I knew I was going to hate him, and I was so happy when I thought he was dead the first time, then the second… And he just kept losing body parts and not dying! He is the most resilient character I have ever read! When he finally died, I was so overjoyed you would not believe!
‘War makes monsters of men’
What a phenomenal novel oh my god! This book has set the bar so high for the rest of the series! I’ve read a few other books by Patrick Ness and this book has continued his quality writing and unique stories. (Spoilers throughout this whole review, sorry).
‘You can’t never leave me behind’… ‘Watch me’
When I first started reading this book, the spelling confused me and annoyed me a little bit, but then I got the setting of the book and the age of Todd, it ended up really adding to the book. There are words like ‘tho’, ‘situayshun’ and ‘explanayshun’, which is just the way someone who hadn’t been properly educated would spell them, and I give props to Patrick Ness for really sticking with the fact that Todd is barely educated and is still pretty young!
“Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”
The concept of this novel is extremely unique, and I feel like I didn’t really know what I was about to get myself into when I started reading it. This book was action packed, gory, utterly relatable and so intense I had to put it down a few times to just sort out how I was feeling. This novel is from the perspective of a boy named Todd who has been told lies his whole life. He believes a war killed all the women and there is only his town of horrible men left on the whole planet. Not only that, but when they first landed on New World, a germ made it so everyone could hear what each other was thinking all the time, and called it Noise. Prentisstown was a pretty horrid place, and had no morals whatsoever. The secret of when boys become men at the age of 13 was something that hung over the book for most of the time., and simultaneously I loved and hated it. I loved the suspense of not having confirmation, but I hated the fact that my inkling was right.
‘I’m tearing back and my mouth is open in a never ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside me’
When Todd and his loyal, yet simple dog Manchee stumble across a patch of silence, an insane string of events unravel and the plot thickens when they find out it’s a girl. The girl’s name is Viola and omg what a badass, she was a wonderful character to read and watch develop. This novel has so many things in it that could be taken the wrong way. For example; misogyny. As Viola and Todd run away from the oncoming army in search of Haven they come across a town. And in this town, women are second rate citizens and don’t get any kind of say. This kind of situation links back to our own history, and still in some places of the world noe. Women as second rate citizens. However, in this scene, not only did Viola step up and not let herself be pushed around, but Todd recognised her as her own person with opinions that matter and didn’t let her be excluded either. It’s from there that I really noticed the development of their relationship, and god was it a good one.
“We are the choices we make.”
At the start, there was a lot of hate from Todd towards Viola, and I feel like that is only because of the disgusting and disturbed town town that he grew up in, shrouded by lies his whole life. Once they started to work together and get to know each other, their friendship and devotion to each other and to keep each other safe and alive was such a beautiful thing to read. Ness has created a strong loving friendship, not a romantic relationship (which is good since they are young) and I just really appreciate him for that.
‘You listen to me and you’re happy, Todd Hewitt. We’ve spent all this time outrunning an army and guess what? We outran them’
I feel like, in books like these; dystopian-y types, there needs to be some underlying romance or something. And that is (one of many reasons) that sets this book apart from other dystopian books like Divergent and Hunger Games. The main character, Todd, is a 12/13 year old boy, the writing showed his original naïveté and we didn’t need a sub-plot relationship to continue the story along. But the concept of the series was unique, and the gripping and intense plot kept the story moving and made me never want to put the book down!
‘It’s like the song of a family where everything’s always all right, it’s a song of belonging that makes you belong just by hearing it, it’s a song that’ll always take care of you and never leave you. If you have a heart, it breaks, if you have a heart that’s broken, it fixes.’
But oh lordy did it do some things to my poor poor heart. If you’ve read it, you’ll know exactly what part I’m talking about and I’m not going to lie, I am still not over that. I mean, theres my heart over there in the corner in a puddle of tears.
“Here’s what I think,” I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my noise like whispers of truth. “I think maybe everybody falls,” I say. “I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.”
I pull on her arms gently to make sure she’s listening.
“I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”
And finally the villain; the asshat that never dies! Aaron was such an unlikable character. From the first time he was mentioned I knew I was going to hate him, and I was so happy when I thought he was dead the first time, then the second… And he just kept losing body parts and not dying! He is the most resilient character I have ever read! When he finally died, I was so overjoyed you would not believe!