Monsters Of Men by Patrick Ness || Book Review

Hey Guys! It is Max here and I will be reviewing ‘Monsters Of Men by Patrick Ness’ today. Monsters of Men is the sequel to The Ask And The Answer by Patrick Ness and it is also the last book in the Chaos Walking trilogy. Now, I can finally- officially announce that Patrick Ness is one of my favourite authors of all time. His books- The Knife Of Never Letting Go, A Monster Calls and now, Monsters Of Men made me cried like a baby. There is no doubt that in the near future, I am going to purchase more of his books to consume more of his stories because of the way he unwraps his stories. So, we should go back to the topic- Monsters Of Men review.

Monsters of Men picks up right after things that had gone wrong in the second book. We follow our usual protagonists of the trilogy- Todd and Viola as they both advance on separate ways to see if there is a possible way to stop the raging war between Men and Women and Spackle. 

*Note:

All thoughts and opinions are on my own and there will be mild spoilers from the first and the second books in the trilogy, so consider yourself warned. 

So, with all that being said, let us begin with the review for Monsters Of Men!

“Choices may be unbelievably hard but they’re never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that’s not how a person with integrity acts.”- Monsters Of Men, Patrick Ness.

Synopsis:

As a world-ending war surges to life around them, Todd and Viola face monstrous decisions. The indigenous Spackle, thinking and acting as one, have mobilized to avenge their murdered people.

Ruthless human leaders prepare to defend their factions at all costs, even as a convoy of new settlers approaches. And as the ceaseless Noise lays all thoughts bare, the projected will of the few threatens to overwhelm the desperate desire of the many. The consequences of each action, each word, are unspeakably vast: To follow a tyrant or a terrorist? To save the life of the one you love most or thousands of strangers? To believe in redemption or assume it is lost?

Becoming adults amid the turmoil, Todd and Viola question all they have known, racing through horror and outrage toward a shocking finale.

My thoughts: Introduction

Let us start off with this review by talking about the pacing of the book. The pacing was fast and quick to the abyss by break-neck action and an extremely thought-provoking and twisting plot lines which I will talk more and include much more detail about them later on. Although the book is 603 pages long, I consumed 400 pages of it in a day and if you have checked my Goodreads page recently, you would have seen that the first 200 pages or so took me 2 weeks to read because I was busy with school assignments and tests. So, I did not have the time to read but after the examinations, I finished the rest of the book in a day. Thus, the book is fast-paced.

Moving on, the cliff-hanger that Patrick left us in book two is a gate to torture. I was lucky that the trilogy has already been completed and therefore, I was able to know what happened right after that. I highly suggest you to buy all the books in the trilogy before starting ‘The Knife Of Never Letting Go’ because book one and book two in this trilogy have cliff-hangers and those cliff-hangers are not going to play nice. Thus, buy all the books in the trilogy before starting it! 

Furthermore, the world-building and the atmospheres expand throughout each books in the trilogy. The world-building in book three tightens up and increases the world where we have already known in The Ask and The Answer and The Knife Of Never Letting Go into an even more rounded world of weirdness and complexion which we do not recognize about in Book one and Book two. (By the way, it is a good thing. Patrick Ness expands the world beautifully) 

The atmosphere that clung to this book felt very real and true to me when I was reading the book. Now, I am going to take a short comparison of book two and book three. The political scenes were enriched and everything went from light politics to heavy politics in the third book whereas, the second book had light political scenes with nothing that is too heavy with politics. 

The third book in the trilogy deals with heavy topics such as- Genocide, Gender Role, and so much more. Those topics are topics that not many people talk about because it either makes them uncomfortable or other variety of reasons but I am glad that Patrick takes these steps to put the topics into the book which allow us to see what is actually happening in the world right now. Thus, I enjoyed the steps that Patrick had taken. 

Moving- ‘Moving’ on, I loved how Patrick threw the romance content into the book. It was so cute and young because both Todd and Viola were young teenagers that were in love for the first time and after what they had been through together, it felt like there was a necessity for them to be together. For example, 

“His noise is getting quieter, but I can still see it there still-
See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it against his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and-
“Oh, God,” he says, looking away suddenly. “Viola, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-“
But I just put my hand to the back of his neck-
And he says, “Viola-?”
And I pull myself towards him-
And I kiss him.
And it feels like, finally.”- Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness.

Oh My Gosh, if you have read my other reviews for the other books in this series, you will know that this is exactly what I have hoped for in The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and The Answer and I am glad that Patrick delivered it to my doorstep. YAS!! 

Diving into the review, we are now going to talk about the plot that was created by Patrick. Basically, the plot that centers around this book is the war that is going on between Men and Women and Spackle. In between of those, politics and murders and assassination are thrown in to make it even more interesting which the book does make it captivating. 

Now, let us get into the writing section of the review!

Wait, before we move on to the next section, I would like to make a quick warning to all of you reading this book or planning to read this book. Monsters Of Men contains a lot of emotional disturbance which will make you cry. So, do expect a hecka lot of crying when you are reading this book.

Now, let us get into the writing section!

Writing Style:

“Cuz that’s it –
That’s the nasty, nasty secret of war –
When yer winning –
When yer winning, it’s effing thrilling -”- Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness.

Patrick Ness has a way with words. The language in this book was rich and the writing style was very poetic, articulate and lyrical. You will feel that you are actually- legitimately in the world instead of a world that you imagined in your brain. All in all, it is that kind of fantastic which everyone must feel. 

Moving on, the tone of the book was freaking deep and gray and the grayness level was extremely high. The reason why I said it is gray because all the characters are extremely flashed out like rainbows and you will not know who to trust or rather who to not trust. 

Furthermore, Patrick added a new Point Of View to the story and that character is… Wait for it, 1017. That spackle that vowed to get Todd to his feet. Yes, you may be wondering, why him? It is because of.. the build-up of plot which leads to the ending of the book that obviously needed him to have his own POV and there are other reasons but I am not going to spill any of those because of SPOILERS. Thus, there are 3 point of views (Todd, Viola, 1017) in this book which was done in an excellent way!

Now, let us move on to the characters section!

Characters:

Todd: He was an interesting character. We watch him as he grows through each book and in each and every one of the books in this trilogy, he grows smarter, more kind-hearted and compassionate and maybe a little more violent but people change. So, to say that his character growth sprouted is an understatement. It is much more than just the character development. It is something that cannot be explained but it is something that is in a good kind of way. 

Viola: She became that brave, sassy girl who does not fear of anything anymore and she does not take any shit or dumb advices from no one (except for Todd, Simone and Bradley) because there wasn’t anyone to trust. Thus, leading her to an unexplainable character growth which is obviously a character growth that is better throughout each book.

Mayor Prentiss: His character was a little bit tricky because we all know that he killed his own son in the second book and as you go on with the story in the third book, you will find yourself believing about his redemption but… For now, I would say that he is neither good nor bad because there are lots of flashbacks in this book and in some of the flashbacks, we see him as a man with authority and a man with honour but something happened that led him down this path. Thus, his character development shot upwards. 

1017: I did not like him in the beginning. He was bent with revenge and he was so violent but as the story progressed even further, I came to love him because he dealt with many things and as his walls crumbled down, I accepted him into my heart but I will never forgive him for what he had done in… [Spoiler].

Mistress Coyle: I still did not like her. She was a character that had many secrets, worked alone with no one to trust and a character that just did not care about the lives of others. I thanked her for saving Viola’s life and all but just the thought of her not caring about the lives of others for her own selfishness makes me want to puke. Thus, her character growth went up high. 

Lee: GAHH! I am totally not into his love interest with Viola but I did really enjoy his character though. He was tough, smart and determined when it comes to war. Thus, making his character growth went up high.

Simone: I loved her. She was very creative and smart with technology and although I did not always agree with what she had requested but I still love her. Thus, a character with great qualities.

Bradley: He had characteristics that were similar to Simone but the things that he had suggested made much more sense than Simone’s, to be honest. Thus, I loved him a little bit more than Simone.

Overall:

I am giving this book a 100% rating because there isn’t any moment that I disliked or hated about it. Thus, the rating!

---

This is the end of my spoiler-free review for Monsters Of Men 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!