An author I'm never letting go of

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness

Rating: 4 out of 5 hearts

478 pages

Released: May 2008

Buy it @ book depository

Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee -- whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not -- stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden -- a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

Check out this book trailer - it's amazing!

Review

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

I read and reviewed "A Monster Calls" which was also written by Patrick Ness and it was AMAZING! It was too hard to express it's awesomeness, this book is also pretty amazing. Ness has an incredible talent to writing a story.

The writing style was hard to get used to, but it didn't take long for me to fall deep into the story. It's difficult to get used to because there's deliberate grammar mistakes to give the reader the sense that the characters aren't well read or very clever. I feel that listening to this on Audio helped with getting used to the writing mainly because I didn't have to read the mistakes.

I loved the idea of the "Noise". Of being able to hear everyone's thoughts, even animals. It's so unique and I think Ness did a fantastic job of writing it in a way that was believable.

Todd and manchee are a perfect team. Then they meet up with Viola and the twosome becomes a threesome. Manchee reminded me of Dug, the dog from Up (the disney-pixar movie), mainly because he's a talking dog and because at one point in the story he spots a squirrel and yells "SQUIRREL" just like Dug in Up. Todd and Viola are two young kids I want to wrap up in my arms and keep them away from the bad men. But I wouldn't need to do that because they have so much strength and take care of themselves, It made you want to root for them.

This is a very long winded epic story about two kids and their dog who are walking, and at times running, away from the bad guys. But there's so much more in this book to enjoy. There's mystery, friendship, love and heartbreak. There are many twists and turns with lots getting revealed along the way, some things I had guessed but most was very eye-opening.

In a way this reminded me of World War two. There's an evil dictator who determines a certain group of people are bad and influences the rest of the people to take them to war. Even when the certain group have done nothing wrong. 

The book ended with a bit of a cliff hanger but not big enough for me to rip my hair out. I really look forward to reading the next book in the series.

On the cover

I don't particuarly like this cover but it's perfect for this book. The noise, the knife and the trees in the background. There is another cover I have seen which has the same red knife but the background is white, I prefer that cover.

What I'm listening to next: Ashes by Ilsa Bick