Started and finished in a day. But peeved the book ended in a series manner where it's like wait.... damnit!
But, I guess I should have known that walking in.
I liked the story well enough. When the book started Todd was an annoying little brat who needs to learn to listen and read the situation. Like why do people act like that?

Trusted Person - It's URGENT YOU DO THIS RIGHT NOW!
Idiot - What? I hear you screaming at me, and I trust you with my life. But, I'm going to pause a beat and second guess you for 5 minutes or until you or we are no longer safe.

Reading it is just a bloody annoying as watching it occur. I thought I might quit right there. But I persevered.

Todd got a little better.

I find it funny the movie UP and this book came out near the same time. I keep imagining Todd as a Russell/Carl mix and Viola is also a bit Russell-ish to Todd's Carl. Then you add in Manchee and the interaction with the cassor. I had to pause and chuckle.
Now, if you've read this you're seeing it too. If you haven't read it but you've seen UP then you see the scene I'm speaking about in the first bit of the book. ( )

Well, this won't be a popular review, but I really did not care for this book. It may be a victim of bad timing as I was more in the mood for light summer reading and this is definitely not that... But sometimes when things are available at the library and are on the list, you take a chance. I listened to this in audio. 2 stars because my friends seem to like it and I might be grouchy... :)

I did not find the main character likable from the start. I felt like the first 10 minutes of the book was him screaming foul language and being an ass about his dog. Not a good way to start for me.

It becomes obvious, of course, later that he loves the dog, but still. Of course, the dog death was horrific. I found Aaron entirely unbelievable as a character and his perpetual survival was overdone by a long shot. I found myself rolling my eyes at the unbelievable overblown misfortune of this boy and Viola. It was so overwhelmingly hopeless, I wasn't even remotely surprised by the ending. Im just surprised he didn't trigger some planetary explosion, but of course that would mean no further books. ( )

I was really impressed by this book. I loved everything about it, even the things I hated. If you can’t push through some misspelled words then this book is not for you. Everyone else, what are you waiting for? This book was crazy. I didn’t like Todd at first, but he got better during the book. Thankfully. I loved his dog Manchee, easily my favorite character. I actually liked all of the characters in this book.

The plot was fantastic as well! From the interesting start to the cliffhanger at the end. Todd has to travel to a completely different town to escape his original town full of crazy, mind-reading men. The book had a nice pace and is always keeping you guessing as to what happens next. ( )

Very rarely do I love and HATE a book as much as I do this one. But, the fact that I hate it is the reason I love it.

The development of the world and the cast of characters was just amazing. It was slow and steady, never giving away enough about someone to let you know who they were.

And I enjoyed the constant reminders that everyone could hear what he was thinking. The reminder as people responded to his thoughts with words, or when he heard someone's Noise and had his own thoughts about it.

The world came alive. And the people - you couldn't help but root for the good and really dislike the bad. I was truly worried whenever the bad people came around, I cried when bad things happened and when there was struggle.

I even cried when there was hope and inspiration to carry on in the face of such loss.

But that's also why I hate the book. I loved the book so much that I hated where it ended, how it ended and what was lost a long the way.

Go team Manchee! If only my dog could talk. I would listen to him tell me he had to poo all day long. ( )

Great book--lousy cliffhanger ending! ( )

I had a hard time putting this young adult book down. This book is not a lighthearted read. The pace is very fast. I hated the ending and cried in one spot. I will definitely read the next book in the series. ( )

A moving look into the human psyche, Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go introduces the reader into Todd's world with more than just words on a page. Todd's words, with misspellings and run-on sentences, link every event together in one long, flowing narrative that doesn't give you a chance to tear yourself away. Todd's world is a violent one, filled with the chaos of every man's thoughts and the politics of a world where the truth is kept hidden by Noise and not lies. Yet Ness is kind in many ways, planting benevolent figures where you least expect them, and you can almost forgive him for Todd's slow loss of innocence. The dog Manchee's voice, bright with love and simplicity, balances the rambling cynicism of the boy Todd and the mystery of the girl Viola. Heart-wrenching, and a wonderful first book of a series. ( )

Wow. I picked this book up on a whim, not knowing much about it. I am so glad that I did. I am surprised that this is listed as a "young adult" book as there is a good amount of violence and some bad language. Otherwise, this is one of the best dystopian thrillers I have ever read, even compared to The Hunger Games. It is exciting and heart-wrenching. This was a great book! ( )

4

nuovo-mondo, rumore, sessismo ( )

There were a lot of things I really liked about this. Interesting themes, fascinating world building, break-neck pacing...

But I'm not sure this is a genre that's actually for me. There is only so much violence and grief I really want to add to my life I suppose, and while I can recognize the goodness in this and even admire a lot of what it's doing, I don't know that I'll be able to continue the series. This is a punishing read, or at least I found it so. Maybe I'll revise my opinion after I've left it alone for awhile, but at this moment I'm going to go hug a puppy if I can find one. ( )

I've never been so GLAD to see the end of a book. I wanted to just quit several times, but I stuck with it, hoping it would get better. Sadly, it did not. Needless to say, I will NOT be reading the other two books in the trilogy. ( )

In Prentistown all the men can hear each other's thoughts, something called Noise. And all the women are gone. So Todd Hewitt is the last boy in town and in a few days he will be come an adult. But Todd discovers someone in the swamp who has no Noise that he believes to be one of the original inhabitants of New World. His discovery launches a violent conflict among the residents of Prentistown and sets Todd on the run. But he quickly discovers the that the person with no Noise is a woman and he soon finds out that all he thought he knew and all that he has been taught is wrong. Now he and Viola must run for their lives to Haven, the first colony established. But will it provide the sanctuary, and the answers, that Todd needs? The premise and the plot of this book are intriguing and Ness has woven a great story around them. There are so many themes here of contemporary significance: power, the mix of religion and government, distorted and fabricated history, book bans, and more. In some ways it is reminiscent of Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" or Huxley's "A Brave New World." The characters and the descipritions of New World and its people's will draw you in as you wrestle with the mystery surrounding the history of this world and along with Todd and Viola seek answers. One warning: the ending is a cliffhanger... ( )

I was surprised by this book. I am not generally a reader of boy protagonist books, and I know that makes me a bit of a jerk, but, meh. This was a stunning piece of feminist science fiction, however, and I loved it. Totally cried. ( )

I've read this twice now. Once when it came out, and then again just yesterday (because movie in 2019!). It was darker, scarier and more depressing than I remembered, but I still loved it. The first time I read it, I was drawn in by the mystery because Ness really, really takes his time revealing the evils of Prentisstown. The second time, I knew exactly what was going on, but I still couldn't put it down.

Obviously, this is a book about misogyny. But this time around I was also thinking a lot about violence and power. Mayor Prentiss wants power and he wants it particularly through violence. In the real world, it's seems miraculous to me that societies can function *without* power equaling violence. ( )

3.2
Painful ( )

2.5 stars. This just wasn't for me. I didn't like the main character, I didn't care about any of the other characters. I was so close to DNFing this book a few times, and if it wasn't for the audiobook I would have. The story was very predictable and while the ending did leave on a cliffhanger, it wasn't enough to make me want to continue with this series. I had a hard enough time pushing through this book, no way am I going to try to push through 2 more. ( )

Like most books, this is a mixture of good and bad, though I think it will tend to polarise readers. I enjoyed some aspects, but for me, the negative elements balanced those out.

Todd is a 12-year-old boy fast approaching his 13th birthday when boys become men where he lives: Prentisstown. He is the youngest member of the community, and the last to be classified as a boy, so his only friend now is a dog, Manchee. It is clear from the start that his world is a strange one because it both tells us that dogs can talk, and it is in Todd's very individual first-person, present-tense narration:
The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say.

Prenticetown is a nightmare place because everyone in it - and all are male - broadcasts their thoughts constantly, so that the nearer to town Todd approaches, the more overwhelming it becomes. This phenomena is known as Noise. Todd lives on a farm with his parents, two men named Ben and Cillian, who raised him after his mother and father died, supposedly from a disease unleashed by the Spackle, the original natives, as part of a war which the humans eventually won. For this is New World, and the settlers arrived from Old World (probably Earth) which humans had despoiled, to found a simple rural existence based on a god-fearing religion. But things have gone desperately wrong in Prentisstown, named after its mayor, as the only religion preached is one of hellfire and damnation by the crazy preacher Aaron, and the mayor has his own private army and runs a protection racket. The community is dying, as its members perish or disappear, and the absence of women means Todd was the last child to have been born.

Todd has been sent to gather apples in the swamp - presumably a native fruit the colonists call by that name - where he encounters a strange silence: a gap in the everpresent Noise which also encompasses the native wildlife, though the simple thoughts of birds and animals are far less grating, as they lack the despair, desperation and self-deceit of the men. When he returns through town, he can't help letting a trace of this silence show in his own Noise, and it is picked up by Aaron, with terrible consequences. For the local deputy, the mayor's son, arrives to arrest Todd, and after Cillian hits him and makes him leave, Ben and Cillian tell Todd he must escape. He must cross the swamp with the help of a map Ben has pre-prepared, to another community, taking a rucksack of supplies which includes his own mother's journal. The answers to all his questions are in that journal, but unfortunately Todd reads poorly: the mayor has outlawed books and education, and it isn't possible to teach boys in secret because they can't conceal the fact in the Noise they broadcast. Todd is bewildered because, until now, he has been taught the mayor's propaganda, that Prentisstown is the only surviving settlement, the others having been wiped out in the war with the Spackle.

In the swamp, Todd encounters the silence again, who turns out to be a human girl from the crash of a scout ship which preceded a new convoy of colonists, still enroute to the planet. At first she appears to be mute, possibly due to the trauma of losing her parents in the crash. Because she does not broadcast her thoughts, she is an enigma to Todd, but soon he has to protect her from Aaron's murderous assault. And so the non-stop running begins, as they first travel to the community on Ben's map, pursued by a posse of Prentisstown men and Aaron, and uncover the first of the lies Todd has been told: there are several other settlements, and all the others still have women and children, with all the girls and women lacking the Noise, and the men having theirs much more under control and with less violence in it.

As the story continues, it becomes clear that the men of Prentisstown are looked on as criminals by the other communities, but those communities are unable to stand against the army which the mayor of Prentisstown eventually sends after Todd.

The plus points in the story are the originality of the premise of Noise and the mystery of what really happened in the past. The character building is good on the whole, with different dialects developed for the communities which Todd and Viola encounter. Todd's dog Manchee is very well developed as a convincing talking dog. The native lifeforms on the planet are interesting also. Violence is described realistically, and the effects of sickness/fever are well depicted. There is a hint at a possible future romance between the two young people, but it is developed very gradually and is very understated, which is a plus point given their dissimilar backgrounds and the various traumas they encounter.

However, I had several problems with the book. First was the constant use of misspellings in Todd's narrative. Granted that he speaks differently, so I could accept the ungrammatical usage and the made-up words, but I didn't think words had to be spelled phonetically - he is illiterate so it's not as if he would have written them down that way and it seemed illogical. Maybe it's because in his Noise they would be seen that way by others?

Second, was the convenience of certain plot elements. A man at the first settlement attacks Todd because of what the Prentisstown men have done, yet we don't see what images his Noise is showing Todd - even though the narrative is in present tense. That doesn't make sense. In past tense, Todd could choose to hold back that info, but here he is being shown it at the moment he describes the attack, so to hide it from the reader is dishonest, frankly. Secondly, why does Viola refuse to speak until they reach the first community: her sudden fluent utterance makes it clear she has chosen to keep quiet. This doesn't make sense: they have escaped from an attack by Aaron, who it later transpires had been chasing her through the swamp and tormenting her for days; surely she would warn Todd that he might be a continuing threat?

It is normal in adventure stories to pile on the conflict and the difficulties which the characters have to overcome, but here it is almost like a Hanna Barbera cartoon. Aaron, in particular, is a pantomime villain who can never be killed: assault by crocs, having his nose bitten off, clubbed with rocks - he's almost like a zombie or some other horror film character who keeps popping up.

A lot of the story consists in the characters running and running and running, from one place to another, trying to reach Haven, the original settlement on the planet, which they hope will be better defended than the other communities, and which might still have a working communicator so that Viola can warn her people that they will land in the middle of a war. For most of the time, they journey alongside a river so it's odd that they quite often have to climb hills, and I didn't find the layout of the terrain and the way the river formed falls a couple of times either clear or convincing.

As part of the piling on of misery for Todd throughout the story, my favourite character is killed off: Manchee. I had tried not to become too fond of this character as I had the feeling it was inevitable: it's a bit of a cliche these days in YA books that the protagonist has to suffer a devastating loss through death of someone close to them. The main theme of the story is Todd's conflict between his wanting to become a man, which in Prentisstown terms means being a tough guy who won't hesitate to kill someone, and his reluctance when he has the opportunity to kill either Aaron or the mayor's son, both of whom go on to inflict devastating losses because he didn't kill them earlier. This conflict is centred on the knife which Ben gave him as he sent him off, and possibly the knife is meant to symbolise the baggage of Prentisstown as well its role as essential tool and weapon.

The book ends on a cliffhanger which seems to make all the preceding sacrifice null and void. So it will be interesting to see if the writer follows through or throws the reader a line. Because of the weight of negative aspects, I can only rate this volume as 3 stars. ( )

Picked this up at the suggestion of a friend. Really cool premise. A bit slow in the middle, really picks up at the end, and then leaves off on the worst cliffhanger. You pretty much have to get the second book right away.

Unfortunately I had recently bought the Hunger Games trilogy and wasn't looking to get sucked into another dystopian series, so I didn't, and now I've lost interest. Still a pretty good book, though. ( )

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness has been on my TBR since around the time I read and loved my first book of Ness’s— A Monster Calls...but so have a ton of other books, and many for much longer than that. It was really when I began hearing talk of a movie based on the book that I finally decided to make it my next read. While it did turn out to be a lot different than A Monster Calls I am still glad that I gave this one a try because I really enjoyed it!

The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first of a trilogy surrounding our main character Todd Hewitt. In this first book, Todd is living with two guardians in a place called Prentisstown. This town is strange for many reasons, but probably the biggest two reasons are that:

1. There are no women of any age
2. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts

The constant stream of thought that fills the air just like voices is referred to as “noise” and is caused by a germ that killed the women and brought this “noise” from the men and animals into the open for all to hear.

Todd knows that in the midst of all this noise, it’s not difficult to hide something if you really want to and have learned certain techniques. He has no idea, however, just how many secrets are actually being hidden from him until the day he finds something strange in the swamp on the edge of town. When he comes back through town and home that day, his thoughts begin to give away his new knowledge and his guardians have prepared for him to leave town and off into unknown territory, alone. Todd is scared, confused, and ill prepared for such a trip but he does have his trusty and endearingly loyal sidekick Manchee— his talking dog— and a pack of scant supplies. Among these supplies are:

- a knife
- a book he can’t even read
- a rudimentary map
- a bit of food
- a few other random resources like
first aid supplies

From this point, Todd comes across many allies and enemies on his road to answers. He is forced to take on responsibilities and make decisions all while not having a clue what is going on most of the time. I feel like Todd’s character went through a lot of development as this journey mirrored an inner journey of self discovery for him. The supporting characters were also very unique and interesting, particularly Manchee and Viola. Manchee was seriously the best and I wanted to like hug Todd for every time he told him “good dog” because he really was and that’s all Manchee wanted was to be good for Todd.

At first it was a bit annoying that Todd kept repeating things to himself like “idiot” and “stupid” and otherwise demeaning himself or saying “whatever” to completely dismiss ideas on a consistent basis. But after a while it began to make sense that when your noise is so loud and thoughts become even harder to ignore than they normally would, having things to say to dismiss them and try to block them out might work as a sort of coping mechanism. These words become a tool that can be used to manipulate the constant stream of noise, keeping certain thoughts or ideas at bay.

Still, the book was definitely hard for me to get into at first due to things like this and just the characters’ overall dialect. But after getting past how weird it seems to begin with, it started to feel necessary. Like how can you make the topic of your book about this never ending stream of thought, words, and images called “noise” without addressing what it would actually sound like and how thoughts become their own sort of language at that point.

And as you can imagine, a book about hearing all the thoughts of living things also has a lot to say about how different mind sets reap very different results. There are some ideas presented in particular about living in the moment vs. living out the past vs. living in hope of a better future somewhere.

I overall enjoyed this portrayal of the concept of “mind-reading” or hearing others thoughts. I also liked the characters and especially appreciated Todd’s journey of having to come to terms with his past, how he fits into the world now, and what future might await him and Viola, if any at all. I give The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness 4/5 stars.

★★★★☆ ( )

I loved this book. Seriously, one of my favorite books of the year. It would constantly take twist and turns which kept me briskly reading. Nice concept, excellently executed. I wish I had written it. I will immediately start reading the sequel. ( )

A great YA trilogy - worth reading. ( )

I knew the author cause I'd read "A monster calls" so I knew I liked his prose. This book was actually written before the huge success of A monster calls, so I wanted to give it a go.
It was one of those books that stressed me out in the best possible way. I just really enjoyed the concept of Noise. Everyone in Prentisstown can hear and see everything anyone is thinking. Just imagine that for a second. How loud it would be, how completely you’d know everyone, whether you wanted to or not. I'll just leave it there.

Needless to say, I loved it.



( )

On a world colonised by humans, Todd has been raised in a town inhabited solely by men. In Prentisstown, everyone is cursed with a kind of a telepathy called Noise which renders their thoughts and presence audible to others. This curse, considered a disease, has apparently killed all of the women. However, about a month before the birthday that will make him into a full-grown man according to the customs of Prentisstown, Todd meets someone whose ship has crashed in the swamp, and everything he knows will be turned on its head...

I was captivated by this visceral YA sci-fi book that explores the relationship between the sexes and the dilemma of telepathy in a new and intriguing way. The novel describes a chase, as Todd and the crash survivor flee across their world, relentlessly pursued by men of Prentisstown, and finding uncertain welcome wherever they go. Breathlessly paced and sharply imagined, I tore through this in days.

However, I was tempted into taking a star off as there are instances where I felt Todd (and therefore the reader) was being deprived of plot and character information to artificially create tension - for instance, what with the telepathy and notebooks and all Todd should have worked out the reality of Prentisstown within a couple of days of leaving, never mind having to wait till the end of the book (this isn't a spoiler, as it is set up from the very beginning that Todd has been deceived all his life).

On the other hand, the tension, even when I don't believe in it, is undeniably there, and I've already downloaded the sample for the next one. ( )

That cliffhanger ending though! ( )