The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

by s4e3yk6fu

This was a long but a quick read. It is so packed with adventure, fighting, and running, you almost feel exhausted once you finish reading.

The story follows a boy, Todd Hewitt, who is 12 years and 12 months old, one month shy from his 13th birthday that will make him a man, an adult. We quickly learn that he doesn't live on Earth as we know it - he is a settler on a planet with two moons, New World, as he calls it. He lives in Prentisstown together with other 146 men. He is the last boy. There is also Noise: everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts.

...Noise ain't true, Noise is what man want to be true, and there's a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don't watch out..

Todd believes that this his is the only populated town in New World, and that all the women were killed by the Noise germ released by the Spackle, the indeginous inteligent creatures on the planet, during a war. However, throughout the story he discovers that everything he thought he knew was a lie.

I look at Ben and he is a different man than he always was, he is a different man to the one I always known. Knowledge is dangerous.

Finding the truth

Todd sets on a journey away from Prentisstown and during this journey he gradually learns the truth about the planet, the settlers and the truth about Prentistown, or New Elisabeth, as it used to be called. There really was a war, but not with the Spackle.

"War is a monster", he said almost to himself. "War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows...And otherwise normal man become monsters, too."

Todd learns a lot about himself as well, and he grows during the journey through pain and love.

Doing what's right should be easy. It shouln't be just another big mess like everything else.

Todd gets to know his strenght and his limitations.

"But there's always hope, " Ben says, "you always have to hope."

This was a long book, and although it really holds you hooked on every single page with a lot of fighting and running scenes, it also tells the real story really slowly. I hope I will find out what happened in Prentisstown and to Todd in the next two books, before the movie is out.