Book Title: The Knife of Never Letting Go

Author: Patrick Ness

Pages: 496

Summery (from PatrickNess.com):

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown.

But 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...

Can words express how much I loved The Knife of Never Letting Go? Probably not. But I'll do my best.

This book starts off with, single handedly, the best first sentence in the history of literature:

The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say. About Anything.

And so begins The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Todd lives in a world of Noise.

Constant, unfiltered, timeless Noise that wafts through his small community just as the sound of traffic does in ours. Every thought, every feeling, every tick of an emotion is broadcast for the entire world to hear--at least, as far as Todd is concerned. He's been told that Prentisstown is the only civilization in a world of nothing, desolate and empty for his entire life. Mr. Ness describes the Noise perfectly:

"The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking"

It's not hard to believe that the entire book is just Todd's Noise. Words are misspelled, do to his lack of education. Single sentences run on for paragraphs, words are cut off before they can even be processed, every thought Todd has is completely raw. While this could have easily been a gimick, Patrick Ness pulls it off with surprising grace and fluency. Easy to understand, easy to relate to, The Knife of Never Letting Go is coming-of-age tale set in a world where coming of age is deadly, and manhood is strictly defined. It's a place where you both wish you were and thank every God you can think of your not.

As for the characters, they are very well defined. Even Manchee, Todd's talking dog, seems be a character all his own, Todd's loyal companion throughout the book, putting his little dog life on the line a handful of times in order to protect him (the ever important "awwww" factor). At first, Todd makes it very clear that he does not want, and never asked for, Manchee (he wanted a knife, as it was), which he explains quite thoroughly:

Ben’s sent me to pick him some swamp apples and he’s made me take Manchee with me, even tho we all know Cillian only bought him to stay on Mayor Prentiss’ good side and so suddenly here’s this brand-new dog as a present for my birthday last year when I never said I wanted any dog, that what I said I wanted was for Cillian to finally fix the fissionbike so I wouldn’t have to walk every forsaken place in this stupid town, but oh, no, happy birthday, Todd, here’s a brand new puppy, Todd, and even tho you don’t want him, even tho you never asked for him, guess who has to feed him and train him and wash him and take him for walks and listen to him jabber now he’s got old enough for the talking germ to set his mouth moving? Guess who?

But, as you turn the pages and get deeper into Todd's chaotic thought process, you realize he does hold a certain affection for his dog, gradually turning into love as they spend their lonely days together running from God-knows-what, which I think is one of the more poigent parts of the book.

I especially love how they keep Todd and Viola's--the girl he meets as he runs from Prentisstown--unromantic. Call me a cynic, but it's highly unlikely that everytime a guy meets a girl, they fall in love. Especially while on the run from an army. I think that it's a curse that befalls far too much young adult literature these days--no matter how desperate the situation, no matter how CHAOTIC the circumstances, SOMEONE ALWAYS FALLS IN LOVE. I'm always a sucker for romance, but sometimes, it's just like, "I already read this. Three hundred times." If The Knife of Never Letting Go teaches us one thing, it's that a boy and a girl can meet and *gasp* just be friends.

Keep in mind, dear readers, that just because it's in the YA section, does not mean it's for the faint of heart: The Knife of Never Letting go is a horrific, all-to-realistic tale of what could happen to our--and other's--world if we're not careful. Though the year is unspecified, the place (and planet) left oddly in the dark, it's in a way that just makes it all the more eery and surreal.

There's no way of describing The Knife of Never Letting Go without spoiling it, but I will say this; anyone, young or old, should pick it up. Immediately. Go, you fools. Your missing out. There are precious hours being wasted. GO!

Also: If your interested in Post-Apocolyptic/Dystopian novels, might I suggest The Hunger Games, Obernewtyn, Exodus, Gone, or Life As We Knew It, all amazing books.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn
Tagline: Ever wonder what it was like for the beast?
Pages: 300
Summary (from back):

I AM A BEAST

A beast. Not quite a wolf or a bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright--a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.
You think I'm talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It's no deformity, no disease. And I'll stay this way forever--ruined--unless I can break the spell.
Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I'll tell you how I became perfectly...beastly.

Kyle Kingsbury is, let's face it, a dick.

He rides through life on his TV anchorman father coattales (and wallet) while silently swooning every girl that comes within an inch of him. He never ceases to remind everyone who will listen how amazingly attractive he really is. He remains happily ignorant of the lives outside his own, including the 'ugly' peoples--those who don't meet his standards of perfection.

Until one day, when Kendra, an obese Gothic girl in his class, calls him out for what he truly is: a beast.

As a joke, he asks Kendra out to the upcoming dance, expecting to ditch her there in favor of his real date, Sloan. But when the day of the dance actually comes, and he finds Kendra not hurt but dissapointed by the public humilation he put her through, he is unsettled.

After getting back from the dance, he finds Kendra in his room. She suddenly transforms from a 'fat Goth' to an attractive young women, who turns Kyle into a 'beast'--fangs, fur, the whole package. She shows him one bit of mercy, though: he has two years to find a girl who will love him, despite his appearence, and get her to kiss him, or live as a monster forever.

Distraught, Kyle hides in his room for the entire weekend, until his neglectfull father finally forces him out. After going to the best doctors and plastic surgeons in the country---"no son of mine is going to look this way"---both he and his father all but give up, his father dumping Kyle into an abadoned, five story mansion, with only their maid, Magda, for company. After threatening his father with going public about his condition, he recieves full access to the Kingsbury bank account, plus a tutor, a blind student named Will. Soon, Kyle has become Adrian--to fit his darker persona--a solitary, desolate being who only leaves the confides of the mansion to tend to his newly created garden. He is a prisoner in his own body, with no hope of finding love--until a robber attempts to rob his home. After catching him, the robber offers Adrian his one chance at returning to how he was--his daughter, Linda.

If there is only one notable thing to say about Alex Flinn's writing, it's that she has an innane ability to make you swoon for three hundred pages straight. During the first hundred pages, it's for poor Kyle/Adrian, who is only now realizing the error of his ways, when it's too late. It's when he watches his past classmates through a mirror Kendra gave him, able to watch anyone he wants, everywhere in the world, and how he pines for his old life. It's when he sits in a corner and watches people go to and from work, wishing desperatley for the freedom of life outside his mansion. Then, it's when he tries to win Linda's--or Lindy's--heart, watching him fall for her himself. I was basically "awwww"ing throughout the entire book. You watch Kyle transform from a selfish, self-absorbed rich d-bag to a kind, gentle--I'll say it--sensitive gentleman. (Once more, with feeling--awww)

Though it is a cute, if rather chaste, romance, there is the issue of believability. I mean, yeah, it's already unlikely that a guy would suddenly become a hairy beast, but that doesn't change the fact that they are still modern teenagers, all of them, and modern teenagers do behave a certain way. I understand that living in a mansion for a year straight, reading books like Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame could change you, I doubt it would change someones complete speech pattern and convince him to change his name. (quite dramatic about it, might I add) The dialogue is a bit drifty, a bit rushed, though this might be to get the plot along. Adrian's interactions with Lindy are a bit...I don't know. I'd say awkward, but that's putting it mildly. First, he acts like a thirty year old, only in the next breath to switch back to his teenage self. I might be alone on this one, but I found it a bit distracting. No matter how beastly he may be, he's still a kid, and kids don't talk like Victorian shadow-dwellers.

I did like Lindy, though. She came off as very real, to me, with her drug addicted father and love of reading (my people!). She's not described as a traditional 'beauty'--far from it. In fact, when Kyle first meets her as a ticket taker at the dance, he describes her as plain, with Ragedy Ann red hair. But as he gets to know her, he starts...erm...I'll say fantisizing about the girl. Again, in a very PG way, but still. It's a little bit of a "woah, calm down, fella" type of feeling. I get that you've been forced into chastidy over the last year in a half, but seriously. There's a point where it's cute and a point where it's annoying.

The only other gripe I have with this book is that Lindy's reaction to finding out Adrian is her long-time secret crush Kyle Kingsbury is not what I expected. I expected it to be a big deal, seeing has he had basically lied about his entire past. As a girl, I'd be a tad pissed (assuming I had come to terms with the fact that he looks like a monster one minute and a supermodel the next--but I'm rather shallow like that), but hey, it's not my book and it's not my character.

Other then that, Beastly is a highly enjoyable book. I read it in one sitting, and just re-read it a few days ago. Again, if your into the "awww" factor, then you'll be in heaven with Kyle and Lindy.

Also: Alex Flinn has a feature on her website called "Alex's Favorite Books", where she suggest titles you might like if you liked her books. So, if your liked Beastly and looking for something similar to it, that'd be the place.

I digress: There also making a movie, with *gag* Vanessa Hudgens as Lindy and Mary-Kate Olsen as Kendra. Also, that kid from Alex Rider as Kyle my homedog Beil Patrick Harris as Will. Not sure how to feel about this, since most adaptions are botched up anyway.

Rating: 8 out of 10