A review by arctoarcturus
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I  really enjoyed the writing and overall themes -- a lot of great and thoughtful concepts, creative writing styles and extremely emotive. I would have given it four stars except for the utterly exhausting and traumatic plot. These kids can't catch a break, almost to the point of me wanting to put the book down completely. I often felt tense out of sheer frustration while reading because it seemed like the author was intentionally flipping the table before the reader had a chance to recover from the last upsetting episode. And while I get that this was probably a purposeful writing device, it made my experience of the book far less enjoyable, not because I was empathizing with the characters, but because I was feeling exasperation towards the author.

While I'd love to keep reading the series to dive deeper into the concepts and characters, I'm not sure I have the energy for all the trauma porn. 
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