so Noisy. (The Knife of Never Letting Go)

Ness, P.(2008) The Knife of Never Letting Go. Cambridge, Ma: Candlewick Press

Spoilers ahead.

Todd is almost a man. He will be in about a month.  In Prentisstown, when you turn 13 you are officially considered a man.  That and his dog that won’t stop talking is what he’s thinking about while he’s out in the swamp looking for apples.  In the new world everything talks, and everyone has Noise.  The Noise is people’s thoughts put out for everyone else to hear.  It’s just how it is.  It can get pretty deafening in town.  Todd is also the last boy in town.  There are no other children and no women either, just 100+ men.   So it’s pretty startling when he comes across a pocket of silence.  When he approaches, whatever it is runs off. Todd’s thinking it must be a Spackle, one of the world’s indigenous people.  As he heads home, he tries to keep it out of his Noise.  Several men keep looking at him weird, “one month” in their Noise. 

When he gets home and tells his adoptive fathers Ben and Cillian about what happened, a flourish of activity begins.  Ben starts handing him a ready-made rucksack and stats giving him instructions and a map of how to escape Pretisstown and get to another settlement.  The fact that there are other settlements at all is news to Todd.  He also doesn’t understand why he suddenly has to run off.  Then the mayor’s son Davy Prentiss Jr., who is also the sheriff, shows up at the door.  Cillian confronts him and Davy runs off to get more people.  Ben runs Todd down to the river and forces him to go, then turns back to help out Cillian.  As Todd leaves he hears gunshots and explosions.

In the swamp Todd runs into their crazed preacher, Aaron, who attacks him.  He almost kills him but can’t, and instead lets a croc get Aaron.  Todd runs further into the swamp and finds the silent spot.  He confronts the spot knife first and discovers it’s a girl.  Aaron isn’t dead though.  He show up, strips of his face missing, and attacks them.  They manage to knock him out and run away.  The girl at first won’t talk to him, and he can’t see what she’s thinking.  It’s very strange for him.  She leads him to a crashed space ship, her dead parents laid out in front, and she retrieves her own bag.  They take off into the night. 

Eventually the swamp turns to forest.  The girl reveals her name is Viola.  Right after that they realize they’re being pursued by a posse on horse-back.  They find a bridge across a canyon and burn it down before they can be taken.  Here, they are found by an older woman who takes them back to her house.  She feeds them and sets them up, and takes them to town the next day.  Todd has never seen so many women, he thought they had all died out.  The news of where he comes from is not well received.  One man actually tries to kill Todd.  Viola does find out that they need to keep following the river to get to the biggest settlement, called Haven. They run off just as an army from Prentisstown attacks the settlement.

Thus their journey continues, the two of them constantly running.  Aaron catching up, then they running off again.  Many towns are taken by the approaching army.  At one point, Todd and Viola run into an actual Spackle.  Todd scared and running off incorrect information, murders the spackle right there.  Viola, scare runs off just to be captured by Aaron.  Aaron knocks Todd down and stabs him in the back.  Todd doesn’t give up though. Delirious from fever, wasting from hunger, but with the help of his dog Manchee, Todd tracks down Aaron and Viola.  He manages to save Viola, but at the cost of his dog.

When they finally get to Haven, They have a run-in with Aaron again.  Apparently the whole purpose of Aaron chasing them was to get Todd to murder Aaron.  In Aaron’s mind, this would change Todd into a man and make their army complete.  After a big hit to Viola, Todd is finally ready to do it too.  His chance is taken away when Viola does the job for him.  As they walk towards Haven, finally feeling like things are going to be ok.  Viola gets shot by Davy Prentiss Jr.  Todd runs him off, picks up Viola and starts high tailing it towards Haven.  When he gets there, the town is empty.  Then someone does answer. It’s Mayor Prentiss..

This book made me absolutely furious on more than one occasion.  I don’t know if that’s the hallmark of a great writer to make me care about the characters enough for that to be so, but it sure doesn’t make me feel any better.  It has a major hook for the next book too.  The hook doesn’t make me want to read the next book though, it makes me want to throw it off a cliff.  I know drama is popular, but I can’t stand reading a book so full of hurt.  The author does create an interesting world for these people to live in, and characters that feel like very real people.  That’s probably why it hurts so much to read it.  The book has two sequels and some short stories that go with it.  There is also a film adaptation called Chaos walking that is coming out March 2019.
I read this book because it is one of my required readings for class.