Chaos Walking: The Knife of Never Letting Go

Name: Chaos Walking: The Knife of Never Letting Go

Author: Patrick Ness

Published: 2008

In the New World, there are no secrets. There are no privacy. And there are no women.
Ever since the Noise germ killed all the women and half the men in Prentisstown, everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts and emotions in one never ending, overwhelming Noise. 

Until one day Todd Hewitt, stumbles across a patch of complete silence. Which is impossible. Isn’t it? His whole life was built on lies that have crumbled and now he’s fallen into the dust. But he’ll have to run. Because the men of Prentisstown aren’t going to let Todd escape with such a valuable secret.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book in the philosophical masterpiece ‘Chaos Walking’, from the great author of ‘Release’, ‘The Ocean Was Our Sky’ and many more. Plus the tear-jerking ‘A Monster Calls’ which came out in the cinema back in 2017. It is filled with ‘what ifs’ and the inner monster within all men (see title!). I enjoyed it however I felt like at some points the plot dragged a bit, when its just Todd and his dog and someone else running from the Prentisstown army. Just running, running, running. There also is some quite gruesome scenes that I could relate for fans of Skullduggery Pleasant or Brandon Sanderson.

COMES IN A MULTIPACK!
The Chaos Walking Trilogy follows Todd as he meets various friends and enemies and discovers what really happened to create the Noise all those years ago. Throughout the series as well there is rumours of another ship landing filled with other settlers to the New World. It also talks about the ‘Old World’ but it isn’t really explained whether or not this is Earth. I would definitely recommend it to readers who enjoy more heavier reads – its 500ish pages aren’t particularly light weight! – and who have read one of Ness’ other books. There is talk of The Knife of Never Letting Go made into a movie, and soon to be a motion picture boasting on the back of each book, however Wikipedia has been very uncooperative and I cant tell when its going to come into the cinemas…

SWEETENER: The Knife of  Never Letting Go has won lots of awards, including the prestigious Carnegie Medal and um… there goes me trying to sound professional! Still, its quite a big honour and you know that if a book has that little CILIP nomination on it, its going to be good. Or at least, I haven’t read any that aren’t so far. The only thing I didn’t really like was how some words were spelt incorectlie when Todd was having a conversayshun or just subconshusly talking to himself. See? Its annoying. It just felt a bit like Ness was trying too hard to be like Todd. We get that it’s written in the first person! Also, there are some pictures on a few of the pages to illustrate what the noise is lie and how it works. It works really well; there isn’t enough to make it tacky, but in the same way it helps to break the book up.

The Noise is just a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just Chaos Walking

If you have read this book, want to share a book that you’ve read or have an opinion on other english related things about my blog, just click on the comments section. I really want to hear your opinion 🙂