The Knife of Never Letting Go

 Ness, P. (2008). The knife of never letting go. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Todd Hewitt isn't what you would call a "normal" teen; he lives in a town called Prentisstown and all the citizens here are male. They can all hear each others thoughts and this is what is called "noise." Everything seems normal until Todd finds himself hearing silence. When he goes home, his parents tell him that he has to leave before the others come looking for him. As he leaves he comes across a female named Viola, an alien who has crashed her spaceship, and she is the cause for the silence he hears. They need to escape from Prentisstown before the army come and claim them, but one of their pursuers will stop at nothing to get them first: Aaron, the towns larger-than-life preacher. Todd and Viola go from town to town in search of peace for themselves, and they find help along the way, but they cannot escape from Aaron who always seems to find them and refuses to die despite being maimed by an alligator. It isn't until the end that we see Aaron die because Viola stabbed him, and all looks well until they come across Mayor Prentiss' son who then shoots Viola in the stomach. As they are escaping Prentiss Jr. and head to Haven, another town, they are met with emptiness and Mayor Prentiss who is starting a New World Order. Who knows what this new town has in store for them because it was under Mayor Prentiss' regime that Prentisstown's residents were outcast men who had killed women and another alien race.

This novel is filled with unique twists and turns within the plot. Patrick Ness was able to create a world that would entice so many young adults to read and find it intriguing. The main themes for this novel would be coming-of-age, manipulation, gender, choice, and guilt. With these themes we would be able to bridge this novel with others that are similar in some aspects such as the Unwind series by Neal Schusterman.

I rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars!