The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking Book 1)

When I started reading this book, I thought I'd never make it through. I didn't like the constantly angry teenage boy who was to be the hero and narrator. And I was annoyed by the intentional misspellings and grammatical errors which made it additionally hard for me as a non-native speaker of English to understand. I didn't get hooked to the actual story until about page 30 when the first bits of information "arrive". Todd, the constantly angry teenager mentioned before, has to learn, in a very hard way, that all he knew about his world were lies. And that there is a lot more world than he thought. The reader learns about this New World at Todd's pace. And while he is running quite a lot, he hasn't got that much time to think about more general implications of his discoveries. The novel is very high-paced and action-packed, so much so that I'd wished for a little more conversation and a little less action. Maybe the intended readers, teenage boys, I presume, like it that way. I wouldn't know, never having been a teenage boy myself. This is a pity because the world Ness has created is so very interesting and promising. Maybe there will be more explaining in the other parts of the trilogy. All in all, the book was more interesting than I thought at the start - therefore I gave it 4 stars. And I also thought about reading the rest. But strangely the ending, a cliffhanger, put me off it: again, too much action and too little information. This is how it lost the 5.

Wow, what a ride! Ness is the biggest troll if it comes to plot twists. And I love it. The writing is a bit "special". Many will be annoyed by the grammar mistakes, misspellings, cussing etc.. Usually, I'd be too. But this time it served as a tool to shape the main character: Todd Hewitt. (In a way that didn't drive me nuts). The character development is so absorbing, you don't mind the shaky world-building and some one-dimensional characters here and there. Reading Patrick Ness' books is like playing with a matryoshka. You think you know what's going on, unpack the first doll and there's always another one waiting inside, looking similar but not the same. I love how Ness manages to tilt the world he builds in your head upside down in a second and leaves you in limbo untill you figure out what really has been going on. At least you think you do. I won't go much into the plot. Todd is a boy of 13 years, on the verge of manhood, living in Prentisstown: a town without women; in a world where everybody hears everyone's thoughts. Due to events that are unknown to him and the reader, he has to flee and stumbles across a girl in a swamp: Viola. And he cannot hear even a whisper of her thoughts. From here the journey to Haven begins. A town that promises safety. But things never go as planed. Throughout the story both kids mature and grow on each other in a heartwarming way. It's so fast paced it feels like it has been written on the run. I loved how dark, gory and violent it was. Ness usually misleads the reader into thinking this is a children story, just to hit you in the face with scenes that make you gasp in disgust :) Now let me fangirl over Todd. I can't begin to count the times I thought this kid badly needs an anger-management-therapy but then remembered that he's 13. A teenager. He's supposed to be angry. Todd is rough, impulsive and highly insensitive. And at the same time brave, independent and vunerable. He's oblivious to many social standards, of which he simply knows nothing, having grown up among farmers. His relationship to Viola is so fanscinating, so poweful in it's sublety. It's fun to see them grow. Looking forward to book 2!

3.5/5 Ich fand dieses Buch recht spannend. Man begleitet die beiden Hauptcharaktere auf ihrer Flucht nach Haven, wo sie glauben sicher zu sein. Es ist ständig was passiert, was mich zwang weiter zu lesen. Doch während ihrer Flucht kamen mir sehr viele Fragen auf, die erst so in den letzten 100 Seiten beantwortet wurde. Mir hätte es besser gefallen, wer paar Dinge mit ihrem vorankommen nach Haven aufgedeckt worden. Doch wie gesagt, es war nicht langweilig. Will unbedingt so schnell wie möglich den zweiten Teil lesen. :)