The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
June 12, 2010 4 Comments
The Knife of Never Letting Go
This is a YA Dystopian novel. As you may know, I’m taking part in the Dystopian Challenge, and this is one of the books I chose to read.
It’s Young Adult, which is not my literature of choice, for the simple reason that I’m a little older than YA and prefer to read books that are directed towards adults (i.e., with an adult protagonist). Having said that, I do certainly enjoy a YA novel some of the time. I’ve read and enjoyed the Lost series and the Hunger Games series.
This book reminded me a bit of The Hunger Games, more in style than in story, though. It started off really well, but I thought it dragged on a bit, and the end was disappointing. However, the end made me want more. And more is to come in the next book in the series, The Ask and the Answer. The Hunger Games was definitely a story on its own. The Knife of Never Letting Go can be read on its own but it leaves the reader a bit unsatisfied: the story is obviously not finished.
In this story, Todd Hewitt is 12 years and 12 months old. In one month’s time, he will be a man. He’s the last boy in his town, after him there will only be men. There are no women either. A virus killed all the women and girls, and left the men being able to read each other’s minds. Not only are they able to do so, but they are receiving thoughts from others constantly, which makes for a jumble of noises that they call the Noise.
One day, Todd discovers something odd in the woods and he goes home to tell Cillian and Ben, his caretakers, about it. However, on his way home he has been thinking about what he saw in the woods, and some of the men in town have heard his thoughts. They follow him home and he has to flee back into the woods. Cillian and Ben were vague about it, but they knew something like this would happen and they had his suitcase ready packed.
In the woods he meets someone else and together they go and try to keep ahead of the men that are still following Todd. The story then becomes a little repetitive and I lost interest. But since the reading was so easy, I was happy to read the book to its (unsatisfactory) end. In all, it was nice to read. 4/5
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Great review, glad you posted it! I am really excited to read this one, but I’m definitely waiting until I have all three in front of me.
See also this review by Dominique from Coffee Stained Pages: http://coffeestainedpages.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/the-knife-of-never-letting-go-by-patrick-ness/
I agree with you except I was thoroughly upset that I didn’t get a satisfactory conclusion and only an abrupt stopping point. I did think it began to drag and repeat but so wanted to know the WHY. Ugh.
Sounds like we agree on the book, Care. I wasn’t too upset because I knew there was a next book, although I actually still haven’t read it. I much prefer books that are a story in themselves, otherwise, it’s not really a story, is it?