Center for Teaching & Learning

Prentisstown is a place where there are no females as a result of the Spackle war. During the war with the Spackle, an alien race, a disease called “the Noise” got picked up by the men, so every man can hear each other’s thoughts. Todd Hewitt is a regular boy in Prentisstown, until he finds Viola, a girl, the only girl he has ever met in his life.
Todd finds himself on the run from the mayor of Prentisstown and his army without knowing why. Todd picks up Viola on the way. Todd is confused why he had to run and learns secrets along the way that confuse him even more. The secrets teach him facts about Prentisstown and himself that he hadn’t thought about. They make him angrier and angrier which eventually leads him to take a final stand against the mayor.
I rated this book a ten, because it is filled with action and adventure. Almost all the action comes from Todd fighting with the mayor’s army and there is a lot of shooting and hand to hand fighting. Patrick Ness expertly crafts the exciting parts by balancing out action with sensory details and dialogue. There is more than enough action to enthrall you, but not too much to make it boring. The author puts in a lot of action but not enough to make it action, action, action. For example, this is a quote from when Todd fights Mr. Prentiss Jr:
“I grip the knife and squeeze Viola’s hand once, hard, for luck.
It’s now or never.
AND—
‘NOW’ I yell.
We jump up and a gun blast rings out, splintering the branches over our heads, but we run anyway.”
The author’s writing style is very fast paced, with little stops for thoughts and feelings or description. When there is fighting, all that is described is the fighting itself, but it is described with a lot of detail. This is the quickest five hundred page book I have read! I read it in one day, it was such a quick read.
The Knife of Never Letting Go is a great dystopia title with lots of sensory details and an exciting plot. It won the Guardian Children’s fiction prize and is the first of a great trilogy. Until the end of the book, Patrick Ness keeps you guessing about what is going to happen to Todd and Viola.
Xander