The Knife Of Never Letting Go Review

Have you ever read a book so wonderful that you couldn’t read anything else afterward?  A book you wanted to start again new the moment you finished it? A book that changed you?

I confess I’ve only had a handful of these euphoric reading experiences.  Sadder still, each experience has been years apart, leaving gaps in my life that nothing but a remarkable story could fill. I am currently in one of those gaps.

It’s not all bad, though. The gaps are one of the things that propels me to write.  What you can’t find—create. But nothing quite takes the place of having someone else’s words in front of you, and that feeling of being transported into an adventure both new and unforgettable. If you’re lucky, sometimes you know that adventure is about to start from the very first sentence.

And so it was for me the first time I read The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness. “The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say.  About anything.” I knew from those opening words that I was about to enter a relationship with this book, and I was right—nothing I’ve read in years since has given me that feeling deep in my gut, that tingle that only happens when magic is about to occur. 

If you’ve never read The Knife, I hope this review will encourage you to give it a try.  To be sure, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea—it’s gritty and often dark and sometimes outright heartbreaking.  But it has claws, this book, claws that sink into your skin and dare you to try and shake loose.  It is a book that, if nothing else, awakens you.

My review:

Todd Hewitt lives in a strange town.  Printesstown, as it’s known, is void of all women, and the men hear each other’s thoughts in a chaotic existence known as Noise. But Todd is about to discover a secret that both shatters his reality and causes him to run for his life.  Alongside his faithful dog, Manchee, Todd races across New World in search of answers, learning as he goes that a knife is more than a knife—it’s a choice. 

Pros of this story:

            *Todd Hewitt himself.  Young male protagonists are my favorite sort of leads, and Todd is a prime example of why.  He’s uneducated, inexperienced, and terribly flawed, all in the most compelling and memorable ways.  

You will cry with this boy.

You will mourn with him.

You will sweat with him.

You will beg him to make better choices.

But most of all, you will root for him.

Todd is the kind of character you desperately want to see succeed, all while fearing that he will fail.  He will stress you out and make you cheer equally, and by the end of the book you will feel like you’ve lived a lifetime with him.  Todd is perfectly imperfect, and hard not to love.  Some of my favorite Todd quotes are:

“We don’t say nothing more. What else is there to say? Everything and nothing. You can’t say everything so you don’t say nothing.”

“Men lie, and they lie to theirselves worst of all.”

“I promised to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.”

“Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world changes, whether I want it to or not.”

“But we run. Boy, do we run. Cuz maybe (shut up)—just maybe (don’t think it)—maybe there really is hope at the end of the road.”

            *The action.  There is something of a slow build to the action in The Knife, but it is never boring, and never uninteresting.  Once the story’s feet really hit the ground though, it is one exciting turn after another.  If you like chase scenes, knife fights, explosions, and a weird alien encounter or two, get excited, readers.  You’ll be left breathless by the last page.

            *Manchee. The dog talks. Need I say more?

Cons:

            *There is really only one downside to this story in my opinion, and it’s one I can’t share without giving away a major spoiler. Suffice to say there is a character in The Knife that feels rather underdeveloped to me, but that’s only compared to Todd, who is so beautifully developed and original.  I would like to say more here, but I hate when reviewers give away too much of the plot, so you’ll just have to read the book and find out for yourself if you agree with me.

I hope I’ve given you some idea as to what makes The Knife of Never Letting Go so special. This book is the first in the Chaos Walking Trilogy, and I plan to review the second novel, The Ask and Answer, sometime soon. If you have thoughts on this book, or have other suggestions for great YA reads, please leave me a comment below!