Recently, while browsing the reading section of a local Target looking for something interesting to read, I came across a decently lengthy book titled The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Initially, the cover intrigued me because it was just really cool. The title font looked like something out of a psycho-thriller movie, and I’m a real sucker for horror. When I picked it up, I noticed more words of the font that were only visible in certain light. The hidden words just seemed like a bunch of random nonsense, but they still caught my attention. I decided to buy the book and a cup of coffee and from the second I started reading it in the car, I couldn’t put it down. My coffee went cold because I was so invested.
Todd Hewitt, the protagonist of The Knife of Never Letting Go lives in a dystopian world where women are rare creatures, and silence is a rare and dreadfully empty feeling. Men can hear each other’s thoughts and animals can talk. It’s just a continuous stream of Noise. Unfiltered, unclear Noise. Todd’s hometown Prentisstown is a small, rural area located near a swamp. He lives with his caretakers Ben and Cillian and they all live seemingly peaceful life on their farm. Todd is just a month short of turning thirteen and becoming a “man” by Prentisstown law. However, when the truth of Prentisstown is in danger of being revealed, Todd and his giddy dog Manchee have each other to keep themselves safe and out of harm’s way. The story follows Todd’s journey and fight against hunger, disease, natives and the truth.
Though the Prentisstown grammar was a frustrating slap in the face when I started it, the action-packed story had me immersed by the first two sentences, not even kidding: “The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.” Finding out dogs could talk in this strange world forced me to read on. Along with this book having a clever concept, it reassuring a theme: hope. No matter what turmoil Todd was in, he somehow still got through. His caretaker Ben told him to have hope, but Todd just couldn’t find it at first after all that he’d been through. But after going to Hell and back; almost losing the things he held dear, he found that hope. It was emotional and kept me at the edge of my seat, misty-eyed every now and then until the last page. I cannot wait to see what Patrick Ness has to offer in the second book of the series, The Ask and the Answer.
I sincerely recommend this novel to anybody looking for the kind of book that takes you away from reality when you open it, or to anybody that is completely okay with becoming attached to a character. When I say that Todd’s story will make you think differently about life, I mean it. It just is an all-around amazing novel, and I have hope that the rest of the series, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men will be just as great, if not better.
