Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go

Title: The Knife of Never Letting Go
Author: Patrick Ness 
Publisher: Walker
Series: The Chaos Walking Trilogy #1
Release Date: 22/10/2008
Pages: 479
Format: Paperback 
Buy: Book Depository 
Author Twitter: @Patrick_Ness

‘Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee – whose thoughts he can hear too, whether he wants to or not – stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town of where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden – a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursers can hear your every thought?’ 

So, this is the first book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy that I had borrowed from my sister.

I don’t think I could speak highly enough of this book; it was just pure brilliance. Normally when I read a book there is one aspect that sells it for me and makes me love it. For this book, there wasn’t just one aspect for me, it was every single point in this book that made me love it. 

The whole plotline shows how Todd is used to having to privacy in his life. He’s used to everyone around him knowing how he’s feeling and how he’s thinking and how he thinks that it’s such a normal thing to have everyone know everything about you and the only way you can stop it is if you’re able to bury your thoughts under the rest of your Noise. I thought that related to a lot of people nowadays and the use of Social Media. The fact that there are a lot of people that tend to document every single thing on sites. Even though that might not have been what Ness was thinking about when writing it, that was what ended up coming to my head. 

I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to give away the book but one thing I loved was that you never knew what was going to happen next. No matter how much I tried to guess what was going to happen, things just kept surprising me. The whole book is filled with so many twists and revelations that you never get bored of reading. 

I really loved the fact that the whole book was written as Todd would speak, so you have his accent going through your head the whole time your reading and that for me brought the book alive even more. His whole character development was amazing and I can’t wait to see what happens with him in the next few books as he grows more as a character. You could see the affects that certain events in the book has had on him and how it’s changed the way he is or the way he reacts to different things. 

The end left me in pure shock and it was one of those cliff hangers that hurt my chest to read. 

I cannot wait to get my hands on this book and I would highly recommend this book to just about anyone!

Rating: ★★★★★