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reasalic's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
I bought this series years ago but put off reading it every time I picked it up but I can’t remember why. The fact that you can see into everybody’s mind and yet he is still an unreliable narrator is really interesting. Excited to read the second book as it gets even better reviews, but I really hope Aaron doesn’t come back from the dead AGAIN because I really couldn’t take it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Death, and Death of parent
gromithorror's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, Vomit, and Death of parent
Moderate: Abandonment, Cursing, Genocide, and Grief
nenaveenstra's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Dit boek begon erg traag, en was heel frustrerend, omdat veel informatie werd achtergehouden. Niet alleen voor de lezer, maar ook voor het hoofdpersonage, Todd Hewitt. Hij wordt op pad gestuurd en krijgt een boek mee waar informatie in staat, die hij niet kan lezen, omdat hij dat nooit geleerd heeft - en vervolgens is hij te trots om iemand te vragen om hem te helpen. Na ongeveer twee derde van het boek heeft Todd wat meer kennis van zaken en dan wordt het tempo ook een stukje omhoog geschroefd. Dan pas wordt het eigenlijk echt leuk, en ook emotioneel.
Ik vond het goed aan dit boek dat het een soort commentaar levert op de manier waarop mensen omgaan met het onbekende en het onbegrip dat tussen mannen en vrouwen bestaat. Ik zou niet zo ver willen gaan om te zeggen dat dit een feministisch boek is, en het commentaar op kolonialisme dat dit boek had kunnen geven mist ook een beetje, maar het doet een goede poging. Ik had wel meer écht sci-fi-achtige elementen willen zien, want hoewel dit boek zich afspeelt op een andere planeet dan de onze (de Nieuwe Wereld), voelde het toch als een aards boek, afgezien van de Herrie en neergestorte ruimteschepen.
Ik kan niet zeggen dat ik helemaal weg was van dit boek, maar gaandeweg heb ik wel een zwak ontwikkeld voor Todd en Viola en ik ben benieuwd naar de rest van de serie.
Ik vond het goed aan dit boek dat het een soort commentaar levert op de manier waarop mensen omgaan met het onbekende en het onbegrip dat tussen mannen en vrouwen bestaat. Ik zou niet zo ver willen gaan om te zeggen dat dit een feministisch boek is, en het commentaar op kolonialisme dat dit boek had kunnen geven mist ook een beetje, maar het doet een goede poging. Ik had wel meer écht sci-fi-achtige elementen willen zien, want hoewel dit boek zich afspeelt op een andere planeet dan de onze (de Nieuwe Wereld), voelde het toch als een aards boek, afgezien van de Herrie en neergestorte ruimteschepen.
Ik kan niet zeggen dat ik helemaal weg was van dit boek, maar gaandeweg heb ik wel een zwak ontwikkeld voor Todd
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Violence
Moderate: Sexism and Death of parent
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
chaptersonapage's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness. It follows Todd Hewitt, a boy from Prentisstown who is nearing his thirteenth birthday. The day he becomes a man.
Things work differently in Todd’s world. After there was something called the noise germ that was released on the population, two big things happened. One, everyone began to hear the thoughts of everyone else. Two, the female population was wiped out. This is the life Todd Hewitt knows and has grown up with since he was a baby. That’s going to be turned upside down though when he discovers something that shouldn’t be possible. He finds a girl, and she has no noise.
The premise of this story is interesting. It’s different with the way everyone can read everyone else’s mind, but it seems like they can still figure out ways to hide things from each other if they train themselves enough. It was also cool to see the animal’s thoughts in the world too. Initially I wasn’t sure if I liked this or not, but the way it was written worked out well. The more intelligent animals had more to say than others, and every type of animal seemed to have its own unique way of speaking. Manchee especially wormed his way into my heart.
The writing itself took some time for me to get used to, and while I understand it’s use, I don’t think I ever really warmed up to it at all. Even though a lot of the things were written with phonetic spellings, it was hard for me to read the words when they popped up. Small things like ‘yer’ for ‘your’ were negligible and I could read on fine, but the bigger words always stopped me and pulled me out of the moment as my brain caught up with what the book was saying. I think it was a good stylistic choice though and it wasn’t overdone. There was just enough to represent the world without it being too much.
All the characters were interesting to read about as well. My favorite was Manchee, Todd’s dog. I am a fierce animal lover, and he’s such a good pup. He’s loyal to Todd and, even though Todd didn’t want a dog at first, they become closer as the book goes on. You can feel their connection and I found myself wanting to pet and hug Manchee! Since I obviously can’t with a fictional dog, I forced my own into big hugs!!
Todd is interesting too, though his perspective would annoy me from time to time. He’s pretty naive in the beginning, and it takes a lot of the book for him to open up to things. This was made especially frustrating when he would be told something and we would be pulled into his head rather than hearing the conversation play out. We would hear his thoughts of doubt and disbelief over it, but we wouldn’t hear what he was doubting or disbelieving. We’re left with his denial and have to keep reading and reading to see him finally start to accept the truth. Still, he had a lot of good qualities. He was strong willed and determined. He goes through a lot and his perseverance was really admirable.
Viola is the last of the main three characters, and she was an interesting one. She’s silent. No thoughts are floating about in the noise from her, and she both confuses and intrigues Todd. Her story is a mystery, but it slowly unfolds throughout the story and we learn more about her as she opens up to Todd. I was really interested in her background, and I also felt myself feeling the frustration Todd felt at not knowing her thoughts. I think reading from her perspective would have been really neat since it would give insight on what it’s like for her living in the noise.
The best part of the novel was the way they grew together over the span of the book and how they go from distrusting to relying on one another. It’s definitely a book about survival, and it’s a long and hard fought one. It leaves off on a cliffhanger that I was pretty unhappy with, but thankfully the rest of the books are already out!
I’m glad I finally got around to reading this book. There were a few things that had me choose to rate this as a 4 instead of a 5, but it was a toss up for a while. I’m really interested to see how the movie version of the story plays out. I really hope with all the time they put into it, it does the story justice!
Things work differently in Todd’s world. After there was something called the noise germ that was released on the population, two big things happened. One, everyone began to hear the thoughts of everyone else. Two, the female population was wiped out. This is the life Todd Hewitt knows and has grown up with since he was a baby. That’s going to be turned upside down though when he discovers something that shouldn’t be possible. He finds a girl, and she has no noise.
The premise of this story is interesting. It’s different with the way everyone can read everyone else’s mind, but it seems like they can still figure out ways to hide things from each other if they train themselves enough. It was also cool to see the animal’s thoughts in the world too. Initially I wasn’t sure if I liked this or not, but the way it was written worked out well. The more intelligent animals had more to say than others, and every type of animal seemed to have its own unique way of speaking. Manchee especially wormed his way into my heart.
The writing itself took some time for me to get used to, and while I understand it’s use, I don’t think I ever really warmed up to it at all. Even though a lot of the things were written with phonetic spellings, it was hard for me to read the words when they popped up. Small things like ‘yer’ for ‘your’ were negligible and I could read on fine, but the bigger words always stopped me and pulled me out of the moment as my brain caught up with what the book was saying. I think it was a good stylistic choice though and it wasn’t overdone. There was just enough to represent the world without it being too much.
All the characters were interesting to read about as well. My favorite was Manchee, Todd’s dog. I am a fierce animal lover, and he’s such a good pup. He’s loyal to Todd and, even though Todd didn’t want a dog at first, they become closer as the book goes on. You can feel their connection and I found myself wanting to pet and hug Manchee! Since I obviously can’t with a fictional dog, I forced my own into big hugs!!
Todd is interesting too, though his perspective would annoy me from time to time. He’s pretty naive in the beginning, and it takes a lot of the book for him to open up to things. This was made especially frustrating when he would be told something and we would be pulled into his head rather than hearing the conversation play out. We would hear his thoughts of doubt and disbelief over it, but we wouldn’t hear what he was doubting or disbelieving. We’re left with his denial and have to keep reading and reading to see him finally start to accept the truth. Still, he had a lot of good qualities. He was strong willed and determined. He goes through a lot and his perseverance was really admirable.
Viola is the last of the main three characters, and she was an interesting one. She’s silent. No thoughts are floating about in the noise from her, and she both confuses and intrigues Todd. Her story is a mystery, but it slowly unfolds throughout the story and we learn more about her as she opens up to Todd. I was really interested in her background, and I also felt myself feeling the frustration Todd felt at not knowing her thoughts. I think reading from her perspective would have been really neat since it would give insight on what it’s like for her living in the noise.
The best part of the novel was the way they grew together over the span of the book and how they go from distrusting to relying on one another. It’s definitely a book about survival, and it’s a long and hard fought one. It leaves off on a cliffhanger that I was pretty unhappy with, but thankfully the rest of the books are already out!
I’m glad I finally got around to reading this book. There were a few things that had me choose to rate this as a 4 instead of a 5, but it was a toss up for a while. I’m really interested to see how the movie version of the story plays out. I really hope with all the time they put into it, it does the story justice!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Grief, and Xenophobia
Minor: Sexism
ggmariereads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, Violence, and Vomit
Minor: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Grief, and Medical content
leileikarma1's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Colonisation, Cursing, Death of parent, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Murder
Minor: Alcoholism, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Misogyny, and Vomit
entanglednovels's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
An oldie but it was a goodie. Not sure it really needed to be so long, as parts seemed to drag on, especially towards the end, but overall a strong story. It’s only the second Patrick Ness I’ve read, but I am still impressed. I will continue with the series at some point.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Vomit, Murder, Gun violence, and Gore
Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, Death of parent, Death, and Cursing
silver_lining125's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, Sexism, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Gun violence, and Grief
Minor: Torture and Suicide
emusing's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Violence, and Gore
Moderate: Religious bigotry
Minor: Cursing and Death of parent
stephsz's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
Moderate: Violence and Death of parent
Minor: Sexism