Wow. I have just put this book down and found I sim­ply had to write a review straight away to try and col­lect my thoughts. This is one hell of a book. I think Patrick Ness has just become my top author. Ever. I don’t even remem­ber the last time a book affected me so much. My heart is still racing.

I’m not sure I can do it jus­tice in my review.

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Pren­tis­stown. But Pren­tis­stown isn’t like other towns. Every­one can hear every­one else’s thoughts in a con­stant, over­whelm­ing never-ending Noise. There is no pri­vacy. There are no secrets.

 Or are there?

Just one month away from the birth­day that will make him a man, Todd unex­pect­edly stum­bles upon a spot of com­plete silence.

Which is impossible.

 Pren­tis­stown has been lying to him.

And now he’s going to have to run…

This book is…stunning. Exhil­a­rat­ing. Excit­ing. Bru­tal. Poignant. Heartbreaking.

I couldn’t put it down. I so caught up in the story, I would catch myself skim read­ing ahead just to find out what hap­pened sooner. I think I was in a state of ner­vous ten­sion the whole time I was read­ing it. You guys — it was stress­ful.

There are so many things I want to dis­cuss, but I’ll refrain because I don’t want to give too much away – I didn’t quite know what to expect going in with this, and I think that made the expe­ri­ence of read­ing it even bet­ter. You are thrown straight away into non-stop action for 500 glo­ri­ous pages, leav­ing you breath­less right along­side the char­ac­ters. But within this are also some incred­i­bly touch­ing, quiet moments, that only empha­size just how tal­ented a sto­ry­teller Ness is.

Todd. My brave Todd. I fell in love with him. Sim­ple as that. He is one of best-developed char­ac­ters I’ve ever read. At the begin­ning we meet a back-chatting, angry, fed up, fright­ened lit­tle kid. By the end we know a brave, heroic, strong one. Todd’s loss of inno­cence, his grow­ing matu­rity, the strength of his friend­ship with Viola, was all a part of one of the most pow­er­fully writ­ten friend­ships I think I may have ever read — cer­tainly one of my favourite aspects of the whole experience.

Some peo­ple may be put of by the nar­ra­tive in this book — that is because Ness writes as Todd would speak, using words such as ‘tho’ and ‘yer’ and ‘direk­shun’. Don’t let this put you off. Around 30 pages in I was com­pletely hooked by his story, and began to read with ease. ‘Hear­ing’ how Todd talks, while tak­ing a while to get used too, serves to make Todd feel real and his char­ac­ter jumped from the page as I read.

Ness cer­tainly doesn’t hold back and this story is grue­some and rather graphic in places, (a warn­ing to younger read­ers) but always in a way that is inte­gral to the story, this book has an impor­tant story to tell, and the graphic nature is an essen­tial part of that. He is harsh on his char­ac­ters too, and there are many heart­break­ing deci­sions and moments through­out that not only heighten the ten­sion while read­ing, but make you con­tinue to fear for Todd, Viola and Manchee, (the best writ­ten dog ever to grace the page) right up to the end of the book and beyond. This one fin­ishes on one hell of a cliffhanger and I’m actu­ally seri­ously con­cerned about what Todd is going to have to do in order to sur­vive all that’s com­ing and what that will mean for him as a character.

Ulti­mately I think this is a story about hope. About grow­ing up in bleak and des­per­ate soci­ety and the dif­fi­cult choices we are forced to make along the way. About love and loy­alty between true friends, the evil that men can do, and strength and courage to stand against it. The Knife of Never Let­ting Go is a fan­tas­tic dystopian tale that sur­passes any I have read before. Patrick Ness has weaved together com­plex ideas of author­ity, con­trol, oppres­sion, sex­ism, equal­ity and moral­ity in one thrilling adven­ture. One I won’t be able to stop think­ing about for days after­wards — the sign of a truly pow­er­ful piece of fiction.

I can read it.
I can read her.
Cuz she’s think­ing about how her own par­ents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s won­der­ing if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she’s tak­ing the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hear­ing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s tak­ing the song of my pa and she’s weav­ing it into every­thing else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.
And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts.
She hurts.
I know all this.
I know it’s true.
Cuz I can read her.
I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none.
I know who she is.
I know Viola Eade.

Check out some reviews by other bloggers:

The Crooked Shelf

Bart’s Book­shelf

YA Reads