A review by tiltingwindward
Chaos Walking: A Trilogy by Patrick Ness

4.0

I'm reviewing this trilogy as a single book, because that's how I devoured it. This is another one of the young adult books that tackles a morally ambiguous universe in a clear-eyed, realistic, and useful way, without skimping on all the other elements that make young adult fantasy so great (aliens, a love story, struggles for power!, enhanced mental abilities, a long journey, talking animals, etc.)

You can read the synopsis of the story anywhere else, so I'll just say the essentials here: A world where everyone can hear what every man thinks, but not what any woman does. An intelligent native species. A struggling human colony with another wave of settlers on the way. A girl from space. A boy who doesn't know history in a world of adults driven by their interpretation of the past.

There are a lot of books that pit young adults against grown-ups who don't live up to expectations or who turn out to be deeply flawed. The thing that really sets this story apart is the time Patrick Ness devotes to demonstrating that everyone is flawed, that flawed doesn't mean unredeemable, and that being redeemable doesn't always mean that you get redeemed. He explores how people betray their own principles when they get caught up in struggles for power, but also when they're acting to protect people they love. He shows how easy it is to become just moderately evil in the service of preventing a greater evil, and the consequences that can have.

Nobody in this book is a hero without stain. Nobody in this book is utterly evil. Nobody in this book is selfless, and nobody gets to escape the past unharmed.

The story starts with intra-human conflicts, but in the latter half of the series broadens to include an unexpectedly deep storyline about the human-alien war that, like Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, digs into how two sides in existential conflict can choose to move toward peace. The story here is more more than Us learning to perceive the Other as creatures like ourselves. It digs into the choices around reconciliation and forgiveness and revenge in ways that are very uncharacteristic for young adult fiction.

And, because Patrick Ness deserves praise for this too, the story includes powerful (but imperfect) women, people of color, people of different sexual orientation, and people of differing mental abilities, all without making a big deal out of it or blaring a big "Look how inclusive my story is!" sign. They're just people, and being from a historically marginalized group doesn't get them special treatment or give them an inexplicably superior moral compass.

One quick caveat for those of you who don't like it when books get creative with the layout of their text: there is a fair amount of text illustration (several fonts are used throughout the book - generally to a good purpose, in my opinion). Additionally, a lot of sentences in the story end with dashes, so if look at a page of Emily Dickenson's poetry fills you with homicidal rage, you might want to find a stick to bite on while you read this.

But you should read it, because it's true.