The Knife of Never Letting Go

First impressions and the cover

This book caught my attention sitting amongst other books on the shelf, not because of the title or the cover, but because of the author, as soon as I saw “Patrick Ness” I just thought, I need that book in my life, I didn’t even bother to read the blurb I just brought it. Now you are probably wondering why I am going on like this but it is mainly because of Patrick Ness’ last book I read, called more than this, and that is what it literally is each time you find something out something else becomes confusing. The knife of never letting go is no exception to this, there are so many unsolved puzzle’s in it that your mind jumps to crazing conclusions, then you find the truth and you feel like banging your head on a table, each and every time I fall for this, and this makes his books not only the best books alive but the best author ever.

I loved this book, I was actually reading this book while I was on holiday so instead of spending every spare moment of my life on a tablet or phone, I was reading this book which I never put down the whole holiday, and when I did put it down I was still thinking about the plot and what could happen next. This links to the title of the book, because, even though the title makes no sense it reflects the book perfectly without any trouble and I really think that the title is another big part of what makes you pick a book. This title especially because as you see it sitting there almost so many other books the author obviously need the book to stand out , from the others around it, and the title of this book is not only gripping but it makes you think and take another look at it. This is exactly what happened when I saw the title of the book; I was drawn in without a thought and picked it up. The next thing I saw was obviously the front cover and again it reflected the narrative of this book, and of course you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover but I think it is hard not to as when you pick up a book the first thing you see is the title, and I find myself constantly judging books by their cover simply because that it what catches my attention. This cover was one to be judge as, by just looking at the cover you knew that this was a book you either wanted to read or a book you want to put down and never go back to it. Obviously the former one was me but I think for a lot of people they would have not have picked it up as it does have a rather viscous and intimating title and book cover.

Plot summary

In summary of the book:

The book starts 4 weeks till Todd Hewitt becomes a ‘man’ in the new world. The new world is a place in the dystopian future, where everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. All the women are women are dead and everyone can hear each other’s thoughts. At least that’s what Todd thinks, but when Todd finds something so unbelievably amazing his life is turned upside down and he has to leave everything he has. Armed with a knife, some food and a map Todd leaves to become a real man.

The characters

I love the characters in this book, Patrick Ness really describes the characters in so much detail throughout the book, and it’s almost like the characters are standing right in front of you. I think that it is quite hard to describe like Ness does because he describes the characters all through the book, therefore you get different images until you have finished reading the book, and even then you would want to go on to read the other books in this series without hesitation.

Todd Hewitt is the protagonist in the book along with viola and these characters are describe so beautifully and carefully, not managing to miss out even the smallest detail that you feel like you know them. He however does not describe the characters all in one go or neither by saying “he has short blond hair and is tall” which is not only dull but skill less, a 5 year old could write that, what he does do however is let other people describe him and let you find out that he actually doesn’t know a lot about himself so when he finds out about himself you find out too, which is nice because it makes you feel like you are Todd, not like you are reading about him. The final thing you must know about Todd Hewitt is that he can’t kill, and in the world he lives in killing is a big part of the world so the fact that he can’t kill is very important to the book as you read on.

Viola Eade is the other protagonist is still describe, but because of the fact that she knows very little about the new world, and the thought that she can hear Todd’s noise (his thoughts), she remains very silent for a vast majority of the book, so when she is described its Todd’s thoughts. So you know more about her personality really than her looks. Viola is a very brave and thinks on her feet. She does however has quite a hot temper which does cause her to have a few fallouts with Todd. She always looks after him and sees past Todd’s old towns plans in multiple parts of the book.

Analyse

Because of how beautiful this book is there are so many wonderful quotes, one of my favourites is:""War is like a monster," he says, almost to himself. "War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows." He's looking at me now. "And otherwise normal men become monsters, too."" - pg. 392, I just love this quote so much it is so true and it just makes you think so much especially when it says “war is like a monster” because even though it is a fictional book and story, with how the world is at the moment it is a very reliable and quote that anyone could look at and think about how it could help many people if everyone just realised that it is true.

Conclusion

I loved this book the quotes from it are perfect the characters are also perfect, and I don’t think anyone who read the first one would hesitate to read the other two. Throughout this whole book review I have obviously not said anything made but that is because I cannot think of anything bad to say about it.

Some people however may really dislike it because it is a very scary and people like to always know what’s going on and in this book half the time you don’t know what’s going on. Also how you display and read the book can completely change it. For example if you HAD to read it and you weren’t enjoying it you wouldn’t pick up all the details and you wouldn’t feel like you are the characters so you wouldn’t get the best out the book. If you, however, were enjoying it then you feel like you’re in the book and your there in the new world.

I would rate this book 100/10 and would not hesitate to read it 50 more times. I hope this book review makes you go on to read the book, and if it does I hope you enjoy it as much as me.

****

I thought I would share this with you I actually wrote it for school and it is quite long winded so well done if you have got this far, I loved this book and you should go and read it, I have mentioned it in my favourites and I just felt like it would be a good post to publish at the moment, because I am extremely busy with school work so I don’t have much time to write a whole post. I hope you don’t mind and I will be back to writing post again next week, love you all very very much

Tavi & Mollyxxxxxx