The Knife Of Never Letting Go is the first book of the Chaos Walking trilogy. Before I read this book I heard a variety of different opinions, ranging on awful to brilliant, and because this was widely talked about on both spectrums, I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about.Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in a constant overwhelming never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets. Or are there? Just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd unexpectedly stumbles upon a spot of complete silence. Which is impossible. Prentisstown has been lying to him. And now he's going to have to run...
This book is written in the first person from the perspective of our protagonist Todd Hewitt, and due to the fact he was never properly taught to read or write it's written quite phonetically at time. This was a struggle to read and even though there was reasoning behind it I didn't think it was quite necessary - however, I did get used to it after the first fifty pages or there abouts. But the 'swearing' in the book became a bit tedious at times with the way he would write 'effing' when he was actually swearing. I found this unnecessary and even though he is going on being a teenager I don't think it was natural for him to be swearing as much as he did.
The idea behind the book was a brilliant one but I don't think the way the plot played out did it any justice. The whole book was a bit jolted (which wasn't helped by the writing style) and seemed to be quite simple, in simpler terms it was like, and I did this, then I did this, then I went here, etc. There was no true development on anything and the fact that a lot of the story was witheld from Todd and the reader, until pretty much the end of the book, made it slightly boring. This big secret about Prentisstown throughout the book was made out to be something life changing and shocking, but in fact when the truth finally came out into the open I was very underwhelmed and even found myself thinking, 'was that it?'
The characters were nothing. I appreciate Todd a little bit more because, as like the reader, he didn't know anything whatsoever and was running blindly, but he was boring as was his dialogue. Viola was nothing, Manchee was annoying and I felt his existence in the book was only helpful at one point - there was only one point where I actually felt sympathy for him, other than that he was just a hinderance I found. Last but not least, the most frustrating of all was Aaron, the crazy priest, who was so unnatural and inhuman it was just ridiculous - I read somewhere someone describing as the energizer bunny that just keeps on going and going and going and after a while his part in the story just became very predictible.
I found the end 70 odd pages of the book to be the best; it was fast paced, action packed and full of drama and the realisation of something that wasn't predictable was a first. I felt myself reading the last 70 pages the quickest out of the whole book and the twist at the end I did not see coming in a million years. However much I disliked the rest of this book I really want to see what happens next after that cliff hanger of an ending.
I found myself getting easily distracted reading this book, and I found myself wanting more to finish it than to read it. It wasn't an awful book but it wasn't a brilliant book either, and the ending made up for the predictable yet annoying majority. I will be reading the next book to give it a try but I'm not holding high hopes and will only give this an average three stars.
★★★