The Knife of Never Letting Go
Written by Patrick Ness
Narrated by Nick Podehl
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Editor's Note
Dark, strange, beautiful…
An addictive, provocative exploration of masculinity and dehumanization from the gut-wrenching point of view of a boy on the cusp of manhood who can only trust his loyal dog. A strange, hauntingly beautiful dystopian.
Patrick Ness
Patrick Ness is the author of ten novels, including his New York Times bestselling The Rest of Us Just Live Here, the Chaos Walking trilogy, More Than This, A Monster Calls, which was made into a major motion picture with a screenplay adaptation by Patrick himself, Release, and And The Ocean Was Our Sky. Born in Virginia, Patrick lives in London. www.patrickness.com
More audiobooks from Patrick Ness
The Rest of Us Just Live Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Burn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And The Ocean Was Our Sky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Release Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Class: Joyride Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Class: The Stone House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClass: What She Does Next Will Astound You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Knife of Never Letting Go
Related audiobooks
This is Our Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ender's Game Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library at Mount Char Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Flight of the Silvers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Monument 14 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Clockwork Orange Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Darker Shade of Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and the Dark Water Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Severance: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hollow Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Dream House: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grace Year: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not Even Bones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Other Lands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soon I Will Be Invincible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fever 1793 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carve the Mark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bone Clocks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angelfall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shock of the Fall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dread Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boy Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everlost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
YA Action & Adventure For You
Realm Breaker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Found Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seconds Away: A Mickey Bolitar Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Am Number Four Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Insurgent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5City of Ashes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sorcery of Thorns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shelter: A Mickey Bolitar Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Graceling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Carve the Mark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Butterfly Assassin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Kingdom Keepers: Disney after Dark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fable: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rule of One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Never Fade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dread Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everlost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chain of Gold Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5InterWorld Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pathfinder Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Winter's Promise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Thief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Afterlight Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Knife of Never Letting Go
2,050 ratings240 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Twelve-year-old Todd Hewitt lives on a planet where there are no women and all thoughts (called Noise) can be heard by all men and animals. Todd runs across a hole in the Noise and begins his discovery of chaos.Ugh. I can't believe I finished this book. I didn't finish because I wanted to know what was going to happen, but because I realized I was quickly well over 100 pages (YA fast read) and decided I wanted to count the book. Yep - that's the real reason. Unfortunately, I should have followed my instincts when I read the very first sentence. Oi ya yoi ya yoi.The only good thing about the book was that it had a sense of adventure. That's it. That's why it got a 1.5 instead of a 1. The entire book was filled with violence and swearing and negativity. I will not be reading any further in the series. It is simply: Not. For. Me.Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I found this an interesting dystopian story. Todd lives in a town where there is just men and they can hear every thought including the animals. I loved the dog Manchee. He said things like poo Todd. I liked the relationship between Todd and Viola as they travel along trying to out run the army. I enjoyed this story, didn't enjoy the ending too much. But I will listen to the rest of the trilogy.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book was a mixed bag for me. There were some good parts and some bad parts. I liked the overall story that was being told. The idea that there is a virus that allows thoughts to be heard by everyone is both fascinating and terrifying. I also liked some of the characters, especially Manchee, Wilf, and even Todd to a certain extent. The story itself also has quite a bit of action to it, which is good.
The parts that I didn't like mainly deal with the bad guys, Aaron in particular. I swear Aaron is some kind of Terminator. It got to the point where when he showed up, I was so frustrated that I wanted to stop reading. It was almost as bad with Davy Prentiss Jr. Also, how is everyone able to move around New World so fast when all they were supposed to know is Prentisstown? Wouldn't anyone, at least the boys who just became men, be shocked or hesitant to learn that there's more out there than just their town? That's what bothered me the most, I think. Besides Todd and the people close to him, everyone in Prentisstown is so one-dimensional. They are evil and that's it.
Hopefully the villains are fleshed out more, because despite this, I'm still interested enough to continue the series. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book is sweeeeet! Highly recommend. Looking forward to #2
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This review contains some spoilers, so read on, if you wish, with that in mind.In Prentisstown all men and boys can hear each other's thoughts all the time, and there are no women or girls. Boys become men, in a secret ceremony, on their 13th birthday, but Todd's family want to get him out of town before then. A month before his birthday he discovers something that makes his escape even more important, and once he starts running, it seems he'll never be able to stop, because how can you hide from those who can hear your every thought?Welp, this is definitely a page-turner and at first I thought I was going to love it absolutely. But then two things kept that love from happening:1) After a while the whole thing started to seem like a very long episode of The Perils of Penelope; the main characters just keep falling from one urgent danger right into another and eventually it was just exhausting.2) The dog. Oh, the dog. The best character of the book by far, he's treated so miserably through the whole thing until the ultimate Bad Thing happens and I nearly through the book across the actual room. Just, NOPE.So I almost didn't even finish it, but then curiosity about how it ended won out over my despair about Manchee. I won't be continuing with the series, though.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Marsden's Tomorrow series meets Kurt Vonnegut meet Paradise Lost. Yet largely it works. There are predictable moments but not too many clichés. There is a Marsden-esque punishment suffered by the key players, but disbelief can be willingly suspended for long enough to enjoy a rollicking yarn. Only the 'throw' ending let this reader down - too cynical a ploy, attempting to ensure I will purchase the next volume. Cynical or not it worked, and I will.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What I want to do here is give The Knife of Never Letting Go a 3.5 rating : not a 3 rating, not a 4. I waver because this is a fun read, and there is a lot to like. *Whitespace* and silence feature as plot element and almost-character - something that happens in far too few of my favorite books. (And yes, I love that Middlemarch made gossip a character, and that Embassytown made metaphor a cultural event, so the opposite applies too.) There's a really interesting world in TKoNLG, with animals that acquire the ability to speak (revealing crickets and sheep as exactly the kinds of creatures that you would expect, and crocodiles as much more terrifying than you would have imagined, when they're described only by their thoughts), and a narrator who is on the cusp of finding out everything.
My biggest concern is that the narrator doesn't leave this cusp for the entire book. The plot requires that he doesn't know - can't know - everything. And the narrator doesn't fight against it. When he has all the tools in his power to uncover the great mysteries of his life, he puts them off again and again. Worse, he is shown things, and told things, at various points, and then shuts himself off from these things before the reader can see them. And I, a normally patient reader, am left shouting at the book "TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED, now that you know!" If the narrator knows, and everyone else in the book knows, the only person left in the dark is the reader. That's frustrating.
What interested me is that this seemed like an approach to something China Miéville explored in Embassytown - that saying something equals knowing it, and understanding it. I liked that very much in Embassytown (everyone who knows me will now chorus "well, yes, you *would* like that."). Here, somehow the effect seemed much more like a theater effect because everyone but the reader knows what's going on. In Embassytown, that was not the case, nor was it the entire plot. I felt that TKoNLG could have moved forward without hiding the obvious from the reader - perhaps it could have moved forward with greater effect, because by the time we are told what happened in Prentisstown, it does not shock, nor does it achieve much. We are past the point where it could move the plot, because we've given up on trying to shake the details out of Todd.
I wasn't thrilled with the inevitability of Viola - the first female the narrator has ever seen, practically dropped in his lap - as a love interest. I hoped for a moment that she would get to reconnect with her ship, or meet others on the planet aside from Aaron and Todd.
I loved Manchee - not at first, but by the end. I didn't love him at first because I saw the ending coming at me like a truck on the highway. But I'm a sucker for a good dog. There you go.
The us vs. them aspect of only men's thoughts becoming Noise (and color too, interestingly - though this wasn't explored much in the first book), while women remained inscrutable seemed a workable experiment. I was glad that Ness offered different settlements with varied "solutions" to the problem. The character of Hildy was a surprise, a welcome one. I hope what I sensed as a theme - the early establishment of several female mayors (Elizabethtown, etc.) - will be explained in following books.
One thing I haven't addressed, and I'm still mulling, is the treatment of the 'other' - be it spackle, or woman, or dog - in this book It is something I would like to converse about. What are your thoughts? - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Definitely reading book 2...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Story: 3
Audio: 4
Further review to come! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Genre: Science Fiction
This SciFi coming of age story follows Todd Hewitt, a boy about to become 13. The afternoon finds him like any other tween-about-to-be-a-teen, unhappy with where he is and desperate to be grown. Before nightfall he's running away from everything he knows, the protection he didn't know he needed, and more lies than he can begin to imagine. As he discovers the world beyond the borders of his childhood he also discovers just how much he didn't know about his own place and his own people. He faces dangers, decisions, and demands that he didn't know existed a few days previously.
This book is INTENSE. When there isn't fast-moving, confusing, high-stakes action there's fast-moving, confusing, high-stakes introspection and speculation. Todd and the world he knows is in danger internally and externally. This is a very engaging read, and this volume does tell a complete story. However, you may want to make sure you have books 2 and 3 close to hand when you finish this one - you'll want to dive into the next story right away! - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book. Seriously, one of my favorite books of the year. It would constantly take twist and turns which kept me briskly reading. Nice concept, excellently executed. I wish I had written it. I will immediately start reading the sequel.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Well got through this in no time as it was hard to put down. I love the language. Also like the tough stance which allows bad things to happen to good characters. The plot was a lot less satisfying than the language and characters - I think the second half of the book would have been improved by cutting out quite a lot of it - and if it had been sci fi for adult readers the visualization of the world would have fallen well short - doesn't really ring true. And I wasn't prepared for the abrupt ending... I was aware that the book was the first in the series but a bit cheated that it finishes on such a cliffhanger. Feeling compelled to read on makes me feel less likely to want to.....
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sort of sci-fi meets olde worlde settlements, as is common. I hate it when I get that Lord of the Rings feeling on the last page - it's a ****** trilogy! It just changes how you feel about the characters in it and their longevity.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Read all of the books in the series they are really good!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a brilliant series, well-executed with believable characters and intriguing situations. I love the concept of beling able to hear thoughts, and I love the extension of that concept to show that such an ability wouldn't really be all that comfortable. I am a little squeamish about the way the characters treat and think about animals (even on the first page they are described as stupid) but I'm sure that won't put most readers off. It's a seminal story, as important and thought-provoking as The Hunger Games sequence.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The first 5 chapters of this book were excruciatingly painful. I admit, I dragged myself through those pages hoping for a better outcome...and it delivered eventually. The biggest problem I encountered was the writing style. It is written in first person of the main character who is illiterate. In the first several pages I wanted to bring out a red pen and start making corrections. It did ramp up however. I found as I read that I became attached to the characters that I originally did not like. It is almost as though you go on this journey with them and at the end you are exhausted. At the beginning of the book I remember telling myself I wouldn't continue with the series, now that I finished....I just might have to get the second.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I felt frustrated at the beginning, trying to figure out what was going on. But the action quickly accelerated and the puzzle pieces started to fit together. The end is a huge cliff hanger, so I'm glad I'm coming to the series after it's been completed,
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5synopsis:Young, illiterate Todd Hewitt lives in a world where the noise germ has taken hold, supposedly released by the Spackle (New Worlds natives), which not only killed all the women in the world but released the thoughts of everyone, man and beast alike into the world. What seems like another typical day on the farm in Prentice Town is anything but when Todd discovers a "quiet" in the swamps that belongs to... a girl. Everything Todd has known to be true is suddenly called into question as he must flee to the neighboring village with his dog Manchee and this girl in hopes of stopping the madness of Prentice Town.Review:I gave this a 3.5/5 mostly because I couldn't get into it. There were so many times that I wanted to really attach myself to the story or characters but something just didn't fit with me. I was incredibly bothered when ***spoiler*** Todd killed the Spackle, it just seemed so completely out of character for him at that point in the story. ***end spoiler***There were several things that reconciled this book for me, even thought I only feel a loose connection to the characters, and those things primarily had to do with the way the characters developed in relationship with each other. I thought that his tremendous growth with Manchee was beautiful and I was very upset that ***spoiler***Manchee was killed by Aaron... dick...***end spoiler***I also thought that his eventual falling in love with Viola was, while rather obvious, nice and not too overbearing with the way the author wrote it. There is a lot of violence throughout the book, and while some things are described rather graphically, I give it a pardon because of the nature of the book. It's a book with a giant knife on the front of it and the title very much points towards those same lines. I didn't, as some other reviewers found, it to be superfluous. I bought the second one hoping I'll form a better connection with the characters, and it left me with enough of a cliff hanger that I'll spend the five bucks to find out.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed this and read it in 2 sittings. Found the style and the"noise" a bit difficult at first but soon adapted to it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What I loved most about this book is that the Todd tells everything just as it is happening, so it's very suspenseful and exciting.
I can't imagine someone not liking this book. I am giving it to EVERYONE, -adult, kid, male, female- that comes into my library, and everyone has loved it. I just started The Ask and the Answer (#2 of Chaos Walking).
Do NOT! I repeat. Do not look ahead in this book. I knew that one day I would regret being a flipper aheader. I will never do it again, as long as I live.
Note for librarians:
Perfect for middle school, high school, and adult which is rare. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solidly written coming of age fantasy with great world building and characters who appear to be growing and changing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was hooked in the first chapter. it's a very intersting premise. a secluded town of only men and 1 boy where everyone hears eachother's thoughts (Noise). There's a huge mystery around the town and how it became Prentisstown. Very intriguing.I liked the book, but I don't like how much every thing was repeated a lot. Will definitely pick up the second book soon! Can't wait to see what happens to Todd!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It took me a couople of chapters to get used to the speach/thought patterns of the narrator, but once young Todd set out on his journey, it turned into a good read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Okay, not great.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This has been a hyped book amongst my friends, and it seems you either love it, or you hate it. I started out hating it, and I didn't end loving it. This is a harsh, harsh story, and there is one unforgivable act that occurs in here that's kind of a game ender for me, at least so far as reading for entertainment goes.
The writing style was difficult for me at first, the way how the men can all hear each others thoughts is portrayed, it definitely does drive you to distraction, which is the point I'm sure. If that was real, people would go insane.
So I gave it 4 stars because I think it's well done, but I didn't enjoy it, and it kind of made me feel like maybe I need to take a break from Dystopian fiction for awhile. Our current political climate is giving me plenty of fear and dissent to fill that cup for me!
So basically, if you want to get angry at what happens to the characters, then read it, if you've had enough fear and anger for awhile, maybe give it a pass. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I will never forgive one particular part of this story, omg, but - you know, moving on from that - this is a really fantastic read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My first Patrick Ness book and it was RUDDY AMAZING. MAN OH MAN, PATRICK NESS YOU'VE NAILED IT. (You can tell the writing style rubs off on you)
This book guys, THIS BOOK - I haven't read a book this good in a while.
It was so incredibly well written and very very unique. Unlike a lot of people, it was really easy for me getting used to the vernacular and I actually found it to be very entertaining. What makes it work is that it's so simple and truthful and so very impactful. It hits you, y'know? It's written in a style which you either love or hate and lucky for me, I absolutely loved it.
The character development was beautifully done from page one. Todd's perspective was so engaging and so uncensored - you knew everything he was feeling at every given moment. Todd, along with the other characters of the book, had so much complexity to them, you couldn't help but feel that you knew them.
And I can't even begin to tell you guys how attached I got to Manchee - the trusty dog sidekick. Manchee the dog who was so loyal and so amusing and so lovable. Every mention of him towards the end made me cry. I really wish we could've seen more of him in the next books. :(
The thing that kept me REALLY engaged throughout the book was my need to find out the 'truth'. It was killing me. Patrick Ness kept dropping so many hints throughout the book but I couldn't figure out what the truth was for the life of me. There were so many times where we would get this close to finding out what it was then BAM something happens and oh no, we can't know now. I can't deny that I loved that though. It kept me on the edge of my seat during the entirety of the book.
And then there's the pacing which was perfect . It's so rare for me to read a book that isn't too fast-paced or too slow-paced but this book somehow managed to do that. There was never a moment where I was bored. Everything progressed smoothly with enough conflict to keep me engrossed.
I was a little hesitant about Aaron though. The fact that half his face was missing by the end of a book and he still managed to live [until Viola killed him] seemed a little implausible to me. Although I do think it was part of the whole 'war turns men into monsters' motif in the book. Not sure - I'm really not the analytical type.
There's this moment towards the end of the book where you find out the meaning behind the title and everything just clicks and it's so well done and I could rave about it forever.
I'm not even going to mention the ending because FIHDFOSHF)
Note: this book didn't strike me as YA at all. I feel like it defied all the YA cliches that I read these days and it was very very different from your typical YA book. (Not that YA books are bad, they just tend to get very repetitive at times)
Genuinely loved this book. Patrick Ness shed some light on a lot of really great messages that will without a doubt continue on in this amazing series. The Knife of Never Letting Go was poignant and action-packed and the perfect mix of everything you'd want to read about in a book.
Onto to The Ask and the Answer . I am prepared to have my mind boggled. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A slow build-up with a truly unfulfilling end. Thank god the characters were interesting and the world building was fun, because the plot was stifling and repetitive - run, hide, attack, run, hide, attack...repeat ad nauseum.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5There's a certain kind of book in which as soon as a dog is introduced as a character, I cannot relax and enjoy the book, because I just know that the dog is going to die. Many books about "becoming a man" seem to require the dog to die, and disappointingly, this is not an exception.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A great start for a young adult series. Darker and more violent I expected, which always makes me happy. A world where you have to be careful what you think, a world where people seem to have traveled back in time, a world where history is full of lies -- what's not to like? This is in many ways very realistic. People may find a way to travel to other worlds, but they are still very likely to destroy themselves where ever they are. I look forward to reading the rest of the series to see where it goes form here.