I have to admit that when I first picked up this book, I was dubious. The first book of the trilogy was listed in one of my final year of university’s unit modules reading lists. The module was Writing for Children and while I was interested in a new aspect of writing, I had my doubts over most, if not all, of the books I was told I needed to read.
Some of those doubts, I can say, were valid. This one,
however, was not.
The Knife of Never
Letting Go is the first of the three books but the only required by my
reading list. It follows the story of Todd, a young man on the verge of
becoming a man in a town filled only with men. We are introduced to one of the
biggest aspects of the story straight away – no one’s thoughts are their own.
You can read them whenever close to someone or those thoughts are strong enough
to cross great distances, usually in a heightened emotional state. This already
seems to remove the ability to lie as the truth will run in your mind even if
not spoken out loud and the reader will be forced to confront some questions
that will surface often throughout the trilogy.
While most certainly a fantasy novel, there are some
elements of science-fiction that creep in, mostly through the second
protagonist, Viola. Her story unfolds slowly and in later books we are able to
witness events through her eyes as her path deviates from Todd’s. There is a
third narrative element, from an indigenous life form encountered by Todd that
brings the severity of the issues to light again by the time we reach the third
and final book.
It took me some time to get used to the language throughout
the first book. It runs in a first person narrative and there is a lot of slang
and errors in spelling that are all deliberate (and as an English student and
writer, they drove me insane) but they give you a strong sense of who Todd is
and even though he has some very ugly sides to his personality that Ness seems
to emphasise, we do bond with him quickly. He is full of potential and the
overwhelming desire to support and nurture that potential is drawn out of the
reader at every point we might be close to deciding we really don’t like the
kid.
It didn’t take me long to find and read the following two
books. They are just as gripping as the first, if not more so because of the
multiple narratives. In The Knife of
Never Letting Go we follow the story through the eyes of Todd only but
Viola’s account of things begins in The
Ask and the Answer while Monsters of
Men brings the third and final narrative which completes the story. In many
ways, this narrative could be ignored completely and we would still have a
thrilling story full of twists and shocks and arguments but the one thing that
a first person narrative could be lacking is the overall view of the situation.
We are limited to the views, thoughts and understandings of the character(s) we
can see through. The third element is Ness’ answer to that and gives an
imminent sense of doom and destruction, of morality, justice and revenge. More
than that, I won’t say so that it doesn’t spoil it for you!
Overall, these are great books. Originally aimed at a teenage
audience, I think there is a lot older readers can take from this, even if it
simply enjoying the narrative changes and the twist of having no secrets from
anyone. There are frequent uses of strong language; nowhere near to the same
extent or used in the same context as in Brent Weeks’ books, but worth keeping
in mind. These are large books but don’t let that put you off, they are very
gripping and you’ll never want to stop reading.
I have taken extra care to hide details of the plot, as it
will spoil a lot of the shocks and surprises to come, so please forgive me if
parts seem vague. Unlike Weeks’ books, the suspense is different here – more to
do with the original mystery on your first reading than the tense, dark and
gritty situations presented to us in The
Night Angel Trilogy.
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