The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking Book 1)
Buy Now
By using these links, you support READO. We receive an affiliate commission without any additional costs to you.
Book Information
Posts
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. :)
Goodreads recommended this for me. So I had no idea what to expect, other than a YA series. And boy what an effin adventure. At first I really disliked the writing style and the narrative voice. But the more I read, the more it grew on me. I really appreciated it later, because it gives you that last grain of salt that makes the world much more alive. As soon as Ness included a bit of scifi I was hooked. The characters grew so well that my heart nearly broke at some twists. The story stays interesting and tense until the heartbreaking and crazy abrupt ending. And after seeing that the other two books are even better rated, I can't wait to continue the adventure!
Nah. Didn't like this one. I am even going to do something I haven't done in a long time: I am not going to finish this series. It's not the story itself that didn't do it for me, it's the writing style. I see what the author tried to do here, really. Todd has his own voice, his own way of telling his story. But the grammar and the misspelling of words was getting on my nerves so much that I couldn't enjoy the story.
A lot of more recent books from the Young Adult/Dystopian genre seemingly tend to imitate the sweeping successes trilogies like [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1447303603s/2767052.jpg|2792775] or [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899] were, featuring a likeable heroine, usually an attractive male protagonist, certain dystopian elements, some villains and an exciting plot. Don't be mistaken, a lot of those aspects you will discover in Patrick Ness' trilogy as well, but that's by far not everything this book has to present to its readers. Let me attempt to convince you of why you have to read this book. a) The characters are well-developed and qualified to root for, and let's not forget, we won't find a second pair like Peeta and Katniss or Tris and Four in this book. Instead, the protagonists are twelve-year-old Todd Hewitt (when do modern YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Dystopian novels ever feature a male point of view character?) and the bizarre Viola, a lost girl he discovers in the swamps surrounding the town he grew up in. During the course of the novel, Todd and Viola have to learn to rely on each other in order to survive, and it's their relationship which marks central parts of this novel. What's the best part of it? Patrick Ness doesn't include useless romantic aspects in the storyline, partly thanks to the characters' ages. I'm not against romance in novels, but I'm against using the same romantic devices in YA novels over and over again. Instead of love, Patrick Ness explored the motif of friendship, and he absolutely succeeded in doing so. b) The premise is original and interesting alike, establishing a world in which your thoughts are not exactly your own thoughts, because everyone else is able to hear your thoughts which surround your body in an everlasting presence following a virus which was released on human beings by an alien race. Imagine what that means: It is very hard to lie or conceal secrets, because in a lot of cases, the more you try not to think of certain things, the more you can't help but think about them, and if you think about them, others will know your thoughts. This can definitely be a good thing, but in a world such as this, where Todd and Viola have to escape their enemies and survive against creatures who want to harm them ... in such a world it isn't always that good. c) The adventure in this novel is so intriguing that, especially in the second part of the novel, it will rob you of the capability to put the book down again. I had a rather hard time getting into the story, but once it started to become more fluent and reminiscent of Ness' writing in the acclaimed [b:A Monster Calls|8621462|A Monster Calls|Patrick Ness|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387584864s/8621462.jpg|13492114], I was hooked and couldn't take my eyes off the page anymore. Sometimes it is annoying to find out that each and every single chapter ends on a major cliffhanger, but the author managed to insert them into the story in such a believable way that I ended up not minding this at all. In addition, Todd's dog Manchee has to be the best dog ever. (Did I mention that animals are able to speak in this world? And they will bluntly say, independent from which situation they are in, when they have to poo.) And if you now forget about the least-developed villain of all time this novel unfortunately features with the more than crazy Aaron, then it could have been a 5-star-read. But that shall not discourage anyone from reading the book, because if you are interested in a crossover between the genres YA and Science Fiction with some surprising depth, then reading this book can be totally recommended. Buddy Read with Adita. Read her review here.
Book Information
Posts
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. :)
Goodreads recommended this for me. So I had no idea what to expect, other than a YA series. And boy what an effin adventure. At first I really disliked the writing style and the narrative voice. But the more I read, the more it grew on me. I really appreciated it later, because it gives you that last grain of salt that makes the world much more alive. As soon as Ness included a bit of scifi I was hooked. The characters grew so well that my heart nearly broke at some twists. The story stays interesting and tense until the heartbreaking and crazy abrupt ending. And after seeing that the other two books are even better rated, I can't wait to continue the adventure!
Nah. Didn't like this one. I am even going to do something I haven't done in a long time: I am not going to finish this series. It's not the story itself that didn't do it for me, it's the writing style. I see what the author tried to do here, really. Todd has his own voice, his own way of telling his story. But the grammar and the misspelling of words was getting on my nerves so much that I couldn't enjoy the story.
A lot of more recent books from the Young Adult/Dystopian genre seemingly tend to imitate the sweeping successes trilogies like [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1447303603s/2767052.jpg|2792775] or [b:Divergent|13335037|Divergent (Divergent, #1)|Veronica Roth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328559506s/13335037.jpg|13155899] were, featuring a likeable heroine, usually an attractive male protagonist, certain dystopian elements, some villains and an exciting plot. Don't be mistaken, a lot of those aspects you will discover in Patrick Ness' trilogy as well, but that's by far not everything this book has to present to its readers. Let me attempt to convince you of why you have to read this book. a) The characters are well-developed and qualified to root for, and let's not forget, we won't find a second pair like Peeta and Katniss or Tris and Four in this book. Instead, the protagonists are twelve-year-old Todd Hewitt (when do modern YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Dystopian novels ever feature a male point of view character?) and the bizarre Viola, a lost girl he discovers in the swamps surrounding the town he grew up in. During the course of the novel, Todd and Viola have to learn to rely on each other in order to survive, and it's their relationship which marks central parts of this novel. What's the best part of it? Patrick Ness doesn't include useless romantic aspects in the storyline, partly thanks to the characters' ages. I'm not against romance in novels, but I'm against using the same romantic devices in YA novels over and over again. Instead of love, Patrick Ness explored the motif of friendship, and he absolutely succeeded in doing so. b) The premise is original and interesting alike, establishing a world in which your thoughts are not exactly your own thoughts, because everyone else is able to hear your thoughts which surround your body in an everlasting presence following a virus which was released on human beings by an alien race. Imagine what that means: It is very hard to lie or conceal secrets, because in a lot of cases, the more you try not to think of certain things, the more you can't help but think about them, and if you think about them, others will know your thoughts. This can definitely be a good thing, but in a world such as this, where Todd and Viola have to escape their enemies and survive against creatures who want to harm them ... in such a world it isn't always that good. c) The adventure in this novel is so intriguing that, especially in the second part of the novel, it will rob you of the capability to put the book down again. I had a rather hard time getting into the story, but once it started to become more fluent and reminiscent of Ness' writing in the acclaimed [b:A Monster Calls|8621462|A Monster Calls|Patrick Ness|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1387584864s/8621462.jpg|13492114], I was hooked and couldn't take my eyes off the page anymore. Sometimes it is annoying to find out that each and every single chapter ends on a major cliffhanger, but the author managed to insert them into the story in such a believable way that I ended up not minding this at all. In addition, Todd's dog Manchee has to be the best dog ever. (Did I mention that animals are able to speak in this world? And they will bluntly say, independent from which situation they are in, when they have to poo.) And if you now forget about the least-developed villain of all time this novel unfortunately features with the more than crazy Aaron, then it could have been a 5-star-read. But that shall not discourage anyone from reading the book, because if you are interested in a crossover between the genres YA and Science Fiction with some surprising depth, then reading this book can be totally recommended. Buddy Read with Adita. Read her review here.