| The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chaos Walking: Book One | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 10 reviews)
Sales Rank: 45474
Category: Book
Author: Patrick Ness
Publisher: Candlewick
Studio: Candlewick
Manufacturer: Candlewick
Label: Candlewick
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.6
ISBN: 0763639311
EAN: 9780763639310
ASIN: 0763639311
Publication Date: September 9, 2008
Release Date: September 9, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A dystopian thriller follows a boy and girl on the run from a town where all thoughts can be heard — and the passage to manhood embodies a horrible secret.
Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him — something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Courtesy of Teens Read Too January 6, 2009
On a far-flung world newly settled by humanity, twelve-year-old Todd Hewitt of Prentisstown is a boy on the brink of becoming a man.
When settlers came to this world, they found it already inhabited by aliens known as the Spackle, and a war was waged against them to colonize the planet. Now, almost twenty years after the first settlers landed, the world is low-tech but free of the "spacks." However, they left behind them the "Noise germ," a chemical contaminant that causes all the men who come in contact with it to broadcast their thoughts for everyone's hearing--and kills all the infected women.
On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, Todd has never seen a woman. He was the last child born in the settlement before his mother succumbed to the Noise germ and died, and now he's the only boy left in the village of Prentisstown, all the others having turned thirteen and been proclaimed men. Now, with Todd's birthday approaching, the entire town is anxious, and Todd can hear it.
The men of the town are keeping something from him; although they can hear each other think, it's possible to learn techniques that allow one to control the information that others can hear. Ben and Cillian, his adoptive guardians and old friends of his parents, are both worried for him, though Todd doesn't know why.
And then, with less than a month to go until Todd's thirteenth birthday, he stumbles across a secret that no boy is meant to know and all men have been forced to forget, a secret about the history of his world and the lies he's been told. Todd has no choice but to escape from the town he's called his home and the people who have been his parents, on the run from something more terrible than the alien Spackle, and more familiar.
The sheer intensity of the story Ness tells kept me reading straight through this book, despite its length and occasionally hefty prose. Todd's first-person, present-tense narration has an inexorable pull that places the reader within the context of the story and keeps you turning the pages. The plot is full of twists and turns, the world is immaculately and innovatively crafted, and the characters' pain and longing seeps from the pages.
My largest complaint with this book was the way in which it ended, without resolving some major issues that had been significant throughout the story. It is the first book in a series, so this sense of incompleteness may be slightly forgiven, but I felt like I'd spent the entire book hurtling forward into empty space only to be slammed at the last minute against a brick wall.
That said, I'd recommend THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO to anyone who enjoys dystopia or slightly darker fiction, and I know I can't wait to see what happens next!
Reviewed by: Candace Cunard
 Promising beginning, DISMAL follow-through January 4, 2009
If I'd known it was going to end in a cheap, television series cliffhanger way (as another reviewer phrased it), that this book would evolve into basically an action movie with likable main characters and little else, then I would have never bothered to read it. Totally unbelievable at the end, they're chased the whole way, there's a huge reveal you're just waiting for at the end, and you get totally suckered out of it, the huge reveal is pretty hard to chew let alone swallow, and the two characters get nothing at the end, just for dramatics, it doesn't ring true AT ALL. What a waste of time, it had a few totally promising things in it that strung me along, and that was the truth of it, I feel strung along....
 NOT in my Best of 2008 December 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I HATED this book.
I bought it for my 13 yo son. I am a great fantasy fiction fan. I devoured the book in 2 days, not because I found it suspenseful, but because I kept trying to get to the good part. The writing style was unique and a refreshing change. However, the logic is flawed. The story depressing. Most items were overly foreshadowed. The ending was not an ending at all, more like a TV show end of season cliff hanger. And at parts a bad horror movie -- Jason reincarnate.
Engrossing December 13, 2008
Doesn't completely hold together logically and certain encounters get repetitive--die already! Die! But couldn't put it down. Characters I cared about. Thought-provoking. Ness is a master of non-stop suspense and action that you actually care about.
 Basically flawed compulsory read November 22, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is indeed a compulsory read, even for one, like myself, who hates the typographical stuff the book at times indulges in.
However, at the end of the book a major flaw becomes apparent. It turns out that all men in Prentisstown have a terrible secret (I will not reveal what it is). The hero Todd is not aware of this, despite the fact that he hears the thoughts of all men all the time, even when they sleep (the so-called "Noise"). This stretches credulity beyond the breaking point, as far as I'm concerned. A pity.
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