The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness || Book Review

Hey Guys! It is Max here and I will be doing a book review for ‘The Knife Of Never Letting Go’ by Patrick Ness today! After I have finished reading this book, I know that Patrick Ness is an author that I can trust because both of these books: The Knife of Never Letting Go and A Monster Calls tore my heart into pieces in a good way. Furthermore, I literally have to put my ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ book review on hold to write this review because this book was so good! Also, I have a fantastic news to share: I loved this book so much more than the first time I had it read! I am so glad that it did not disappoint me for I gave it a second chance. 

The Knife of Never Letting Go is a Young Adult, Science Fiction + Dystopian novel following Todd, the protagonist as he runs from his town called- Prentisstown which had fed him lies about numerous things from the day he was born.

So, without further ado, let us get into the book review!

*Note: This is a spoiler-free review and all thoughts and opinions are on my own!*

“But a knife ain’t just a thing, is it? It’s a choice, it’s something you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don’t. A knife takes a decision out of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again. ”- The Knife Of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness.

Synopsis:

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 Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not- stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town 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 pursuers can hear your every thought? 

My thoughts: Introduction

Let me start off by stating that I had a very.. Very low expectation going into this book because I did not like this book at all when I first started reading it last year. But I am so glad that I had decided to re-read this book because it was so gooood and everything was different from the first time I had it read! Now, let us get into the review, shall we? Yes, we shall.

The pacing for this book was pretty slow in the beginning, even with all those action scenes and those fast-paced materials for the pacing to speed up a little bit, it was still slow. Fortunately, the pacing sped up with more crazy action scenes and also, with more insane plot twists and things that were not being unanswered previously, will be answered after that. I have to say that it did take me awhile to get into this book because of the world-setting and the writing style which I will elaborate more later on, but after you have gotten used to the world and the writing style, you will enjoy the story more and more until you have finished gobbling up the story.

Moving on, the idea for this book was so freaking unique and beautiful that I had to praise the Book Gods for Patrick Ness’ amazing plots for this book. Now, let us go into the specifics. Basically, humans moved from the old world- Earth to another planet called New World which a kind of germ called the Noise lives in the planet. The Noise amplifies the thought of a man and women are not immune to it (or are they? ;)). So, the story starts off by introducing Todd- the protagonist, as he escapes from his town and he finds out some horrible truths that the town has been keeping from him.

Does that not sound good and unique? By the way, this is a dystopian book like none other. It is different, unique and it has a spark of science fiction theme in it. I, definitely, did not read anything like it before. Also, this book does NOT contain any romance which is pretty cool even though I would like to have a little bit of those. I do hope that Patrick Ness will add a few romance scenes in the next book! (A boy could hope, can’t he?)

Furthermore, the world-building and the atmosphere for this book were fantastically written. The world-building was great! It was described nicely and neatly which I am going to give you two examples now: the world has 13 months and two moons. How marvelous is that? The world-building did not just stop there, it went on to elaborate more about the world and the landscapes and the town with the cultures. In my opinion, I think that this is how a world should be built.

In addition, the atmosphere for this book was so suspenseful and horrifying and amazing at the same time that it just made me read more and more of those satisfying words. This book made me feel things that were evolving around the book! Oh, I almost forgot! There’s an unforgivable death in this book that I wept my heart out for that character. I cannot…. 

Moreover, the friendship relationship between Viola and Todd was superb. I rarely read about friendship relationships in Young Adult books mainly because most of them turned into couples. Also, the relationship between Ben, Cillian and Todd was so fabulously written that it made me cry when [Spoiler Removed]

Finally, there is a CLIFFHANGER at the end of the book which I am pretty glad that I have the second and the concluding novels to the trilogy because that CLIFFHANGER was dvisvirbviebwuivb… Crazy. Crazy cliffhanger.

Now, let us move on to the writing section! 

“The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”- The Knife Of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness.

Writing Style:

“War is like a monster,” he says, almost to himself. “War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows.” He’s looking at me now. “And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.” – The Knife Of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness. 

The writing style for this book was chatty, articulate, crisp and eloquent. It was chatty because this book was written like this when a word ended with this : -tion. “Attenshun” or “Police Stashun”. I did affect me when I was reading this book, to be honest. But I tried not to pay attention to those words and it did not work! So I continued reading it and I have gotten used to it after a while and I did not pay any attention to it anymore which is great!

Oh, another thing that bothered me while I was reading the book was the amount of slang words Patrick used. Normally, I do not like slang words in books such as “Ain’t” or whatnot but I am willing to overlook those words because Todd is an undereducated boy and I understand why Patrick chose to write it that way so… Yeah.

In addition to what I have said previously about the atmosphere and the world-building, Patrick Ness is a very skillful author with both of those things. He made the world come to life and he made all sorts of atmospheres to surround the book so that the reader can feel those feels. Thus, I really enjoyed his world-building and the atmospheres that he had created.

Finally, (and this point is an unfortunate one) I did not enjoy the flashback-free that centre around this book. I would really love to read some of the flashbacks of the day before of his ‘move’.  I would love to read some of the flashbacks about Cillian and Ben. But, unfortunately, the book did not provide that. But I do hope that in the next two installments, there would be some flashbacks about them! 

Now, let us move on to the characters section!

Characters:

“Men lie, and they lie to theirselves worst of all.” – The Knife Of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness.

Todd: He was a brave, stubborn and kind boy who does not have anyone else except for Viola. He was stubborn because of the decisions he made. Most of the decisions he made were kind of dumb because people kept hiding things from him! But, when he knew the truth, he was quick to correct all of his mistakes! Thus, I would say that his character growth shot up high!

Viola: I loved Viola. She was badass, smart, sassy and brave. She kicked butts and pulled out her ‘tools’ from her ‘bag’ whenever she see fit to use them. Although she did make some silly mistakes as well, but those mistakes are not as serious as Todd’s. Therefore, her character growth shot upwards but not that high.

Manchee: The Dog! I loved him so much! He was cute and brave and just everything in everything! He does not need any character growth because his character remained constant throughout the book so.. Yeah.

Now, let us move on to the Overall section!

Overall: 

I am giving this book a 89.35%. I enjoyed it more than the first time I had it read and I will definitely be reading the sequel! 

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This is the end of my spoiler-free review for The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness! I hope you all enjoyed it and follow me with your email/wordpress account to get notifications when I post a new article! Bye!