A meditation on manhood and violence. It gave me nightmares.

Being able to hear everyone else's thoughts sounds like it could be a pretty good deal. You'd hear the answer to every question your teacher asked, and you'd know exactly what to buy your mother for her birthday. The downside is that everybody else can hear your thoughts, but even that has it's positives. You would never have to get up the guts to tell your boss that you deserved a raise, and your mom would already know how much you wanted a pony for Christmas. A virus has been released in Prentisstown that makes men's thoughts audible. And since every resident of Prentisstown is a man, everyone knows what every other resident thinks. It is called the Noise, and it is definitely not a good thing. "There ain’t nothing but Noise in this world, nothing but the constant thoughts of men and things coming at you and at you and at you, ever since the Spacks released the Noise germ during the war, the germ that killed half the men and every single woman, my ma not excepted, the germ that drove the rest of the men mad, the germ that spelled the end for all Spackle once men’s madness picked up a gun." (page 13)Todd Hewitt goes through his life hearing the nastiest, most salacious thoughts of his neighbors. Todd is the last boy in the town, and as he approaches his manhood it becomes clear that the men have been keeping a secret from him. While Todd hunts for apples in the swamp outside of town, he discovers something that shouldn't exist: a patch of silence in the Noise. The silence leads him to a girl - something else that doesn't exist in Prentisstown. And the girl leads him to constant revelations. The things he had believed to be true in his life are unraveled one by one. After his discovery of Viola in the swamp, Todd's world “keeps getting bigger” (page 100) as he runs from the lies of Prentisstown and from the violent and controlling men whoperpetuate those lies.This book was excellent enough for me to overlook the fact that it features no less than three of my personal literature pet-peeves: phonetic spelling, a cliffhanger ending that doesn't complete the story arc, and the death of a beloved pet. That's right, this is a book where the dog dies. Despite that, the story's constant action make it difficult to put this book down. The reader makes every new discovery about Prentisstown's past along with Todd, and each new piece of information adds to the urgency of Todd's escape. The language of Noise in The Knife of Never Letting Go are worth an in-depth look - both Todd's voice and the constant overwhelming voices of the Noise surrounding him. The way Ness illustrates the Noise, with fonts and text sizes changing and overlapping, paints a vivid picture of the chaos of words that has surrounded Todd his whole life. It is easy to accept other people's noise as the truth, but as Todd learns over the course of the book, the truth can be covered up and twisted even in men's Noise. Todd notes that Noise is not truth, but “what men want to be true, and there’s a difference twixt those things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don’t watch out” (page 23). Voices of animals are used creatively and often humorously, and even some plants get in on the action. The most effective use of the animals voices is Todd's dog, Manchee. At first Manchee's voice is comic relief - as Todd notes in the book's wonderful opening sentence, "the first thing you find out when your dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say" (page 1). But both Todd and the reader change their opinion of the dog, and he becomes a moral center for the book. While Todd's connection to Manchee grows stronger because of his Noise, the connection between Todd and Viola is made difficult because of her lack of noise - Todd feels cut off from her because she is not constantly telegraphing her thoughts and emotions. At first he doubts that she can be thinking or feeling at all. The effect of the Noise, even on those who do not have it, is profound.Though stylistically they are very different, this might be a good recommendation for readers who loved [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1209501026s/2767052.jpg|2792775]. Both feature young characters growing close while trying to escape a violent dystopian society, and both have constant action that keeps readers engaged. On my blog ( )

It took a few chapters, but once the story got into the mystery of what's beyond, I was hooked. Part fantasy, part adventure, part survival this is a good story of the mysterious past of a future world. I do have a complaint as to the use of language int eh story that I find really lends little to the story other than to make a good story less appealing. I found the end a little disappointing, but still look forward to book two.

Reading Level: Grades 8 and up.

The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.
‘Need a poo, Todd.’
‘Shut up, Manchee.’
‘Poo. Poo, Todd.’
‘I said shut it.’
We’re walking across the wild fields southeast of town, those ones that slope down to the river and head on toward the swamp. Ben’s sent me to pick him some swamp apples and he’s made me take Manchee with me, even tho we all know Cillian only bought him to stay on Mayor Prentiss’s good side and so suddenly here’s this brand-new dog as a present for my birthday last year when I never said I wanted any dog, that what I said I wanted was for Cillian to finally fix the fissionbike so I wouldn’t have to walk every forsaken place in this stupid town, but oh, no, happy birthday, Todd, here’s a brand-new puppy, Todd, and even tho you don’t want him, even tho you never asked for him, guess who has to feed him and train him and wash him and take him for walks and listen to him jabber now he’s got old enough for the talking germ to set his mouth moving? Guess who?

New World has only one settlement – Prentisstown, populated by only men. When colonizers landed on New World, everyone caught a virus that killed half the men and every woman as well as broadcasting the surviving men’s thoughts into Noise. There isn’t any escaping Noise, not even at the bar in Prentisstown that plays loud music in an attempt to drown out drunken Noise, not even alone in the swamp where the thoughts of crocs (EAT, EAT) and squirrels (come on, whirler dog, come on, come get, come on, come get). So when Todd and Manchee discover the impossible - a hole in the Noise, out in the swamp near the old Spackle buildings, he wonders if another impossible has happened. Are the Spackle back?

But the hole in the Noise is not the return of the human-slaughtered Spackle. The source of the Noise-hole is a girl – the first girl he’s ever seen in his life, the first girl to be on New World or in Prentisstown since shortly after Todd was born. Though Todd tries to keep his knowledge of her quiet, in a world with Noise secrets are scarce.

Soon forced to leave Prentisstown for reasons he does not understand, Todd finds himself on the run with the Noiseless girl, Viola, chased by a posse of men that quickly turns into an army. But where can a boy and a dog hide in a world filled with Noise?

Other dystopian novels you may enjoy after reading The Knife of Never Letting Go are: The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, or The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. ( )

Note: There are no spoilers in this review.

I made it through maybe two chapters of this dystopic YA novel, scoffing and contemptuous of all the hysteria in the blogosphere over this book, before I too became maniacally obsessed. It is really, really good!

Todd Hewitt is a young teen who lives in Prentisstown on New World, a planet originally colonized to make “a new way of life, one clean and simple and honest and good, one different from Old World in all respects…” In particular, the colonists came to establish a Church, one that would leave behind corruption in favor of purity and brotherhood.

Prentisstown is unique in that there are only men there (all the women were purportedly killed during the war against the resident aliens called Spackles), and secondly, the men can read each other’s minds. This latter phenomenon, said to be a product of bioterrorism from the Spackles, is called “The Noise” and even the creatures communicate their thoughts. The Noise never stops, and many of the men go crazy.

While there’s no hiding from each other because of The Noise, Todd points out:

"…the thing to remember, the thing that’s most important of all that I might say in this here telling of things is that Noise ain’t truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there’s a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don’t watch out.”

Sadly, Todd doesn’t take his own advice. And one day, only one month before his achieving “manhood” (according to some secret ritual of Prentisstown of which he is not yet aware), everything changes. For he discovers a place where there is no noise; there is only Quiet. And from then on, his life is in danger.

Evaluation: This book, volume 1 of The Chaos Walking Trilogy, is as good as everyone claims it to be. I could come up with a quibble or two, but (a) it would involve spoilers and (b) they really don’t matter. It’s a terrific read – don’t miss this one! Oh, and while you’re reading, order the second volume in this trilogy, The Ask and The Answer, because I guarantee you will want it! ( )