YA Review: The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking #2)

Title: The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking #2)
Author: Patrick Ness
Edition: Paperback
Rating: 4/5

I picked up the sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go because I was curious about the story, not because I was hooked. I was expecting more of the same, but this book was much better. I found that I connected more deeply with the characters, and with the scenario, than I had in Book 1. This is partly thanks to the alternating Point of View chapters, allowing the action to be seen through the eyes of both leading characters, and partly because the setting, and the action, is more interesting.

This is a book about power: how to win it, and how to hold onto it. There’s a ruthless dictator, manipulating people to stay in control, and a guerilla force using bombs and stealth to undermine his position. Todd and Viola, the girl he meets in Book 1, are both drawn into the conflict, and end up working on opposite sides. The tension built up between their individual chapters allows the reader to see what none of the characters can see – something approaching the full story, from both points of view.

There is cruelty and torture, but there is also friendship and kindness and sacrifice. As the hostility between the two factions builds, it is not clear where the plot is heading. The final chapters are an edge-of-the-seat read, and the conclusion is very clever, bringing together all the threads of the story so far into a satisfying cliffhanger.

The big ideas from the first book – the Noise of the men’s thoughts, the death of the women, the alien enemy, the talking animals, and the isolation of life on New World – are developed in The Ask and the Answer, enhancing the reader’s understanding of the setting and deepening the connection with the characters.

This is a more compelling, more complex story than the road-trip plot of The Knife of Never Letting Go, and as more of the secrets and lies are uncovered, the characters and the readers are left with more questions than answers. The main characters are deeply involved in their opposing sides in the conflict, and any moral outrage has to be pushed aside with the realisation that everyone is taking part in the fighting. Where The Knife of Never Letting Go was a black-and-white story, The Ask and the Answer sees the world in shades of grey.

Bring on Book 3, and hopefully some answers!

Have you read The Ask and the Answer? What did you think of the story? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

Review cross-posted to GoodReads.


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YA Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1)

Title: The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1)
Author: Patrick Ness
Edition: Paperback
Rating: 3/5

I like Patrick Ness. I enjoyed And the Ocean was our Sky for its ideas and gorgeous imagery, and I loved A Monster Calls for its effective exploration of real-world grief through the framework of a fairy tale. And as I’m writing YA dystopia, I thought I should take a look at his Chaos Walking trilogy. I picked up Book 1, The Knife of Never Letting Go, with high expectations, but they weren’t entirely met.

The story is built on big ideas, expressed and explained at the level of the characters. The reader is thrown into the setting and the scenario in the first sentence, and the first-person narration makes it easy to understand and accept the ideas, and move on with the story. It’s hard to grab your readers and immerse them in your fiction so quickly, and Patrick Ness is almost too successful, sacrificing a sense of wonder in order to make the big ideas feel mundane and ordinary.

On a colony planet, Todd is the last boy in a town of men, with thirty days left until his coming of age. The women died during a war with the indigenous population, and Prentisstown is the last settlement on New World. For the men, the war brought the Noise – an infection that broadcasts their thoughts, so everyone in town can hear what their neighbours are thinking. Todd knows there will be a ceremony to mark his birthday, but even his foster parents have been masking all references to the plans in their thoughts, so he doesn’t know what to expect. When we first meet Todd, he’s walking out of the settlement with his talking dog, relieved to be spending time away from the Noise.

That’s a lot of big ideas, all introduced through Todd’s narration, and all of it feels completely normal by the end of the first chapter. It’s an amazing achievement, to make the reader believe all these impossible things within 16 pages, but it comes at a cost. I wanted to feel a sense of wonder at the Noise, and at Todd’s relationship with a dog who could talk and share his thoughts. I wanted to feel a sense of displacement on an alien world, or some sense from the narrator that there might be more to life than farming and running errands for his family.

But that’s not the point. The point is to put you in Todd’s shoes, so that what happens next is more shocking and surprising. When Todd and his dog are forced to run from Prentisstown, he begins to understand his place in a wider world, and to unravel the truth about his home from the lies he’s been told.

It’s a good story, with a cliffhanger at the end that made me pick up Book 2, even though I didn’t feel completely invested in the characters and the dangers they face. I sympathised with Todd, and I cared about what happened to him, but I didn’t connect with him as deeply as I wanted to. Many of the descriptions of locations and landscapes feel gorgeously cinematic, but at the same time the emotions and reactions of the characters feel frustratingly pared back and tightly controlled.

I’m interested to see where the trilogy takes the story, and to discover the truth behind the lies and half-truths Todd has been told. I like the world that Patrick Ness has created, and I like the big ideas he’s managed to slip so convincingly into the narrative. I just wish I could feel more wonder, more empathy, more fear, and more anger, as I share Todd’s experiences on his journey.

Have you read The Knife of Never Letting Go? Did you fall in love with Todd and his world, or did you feel disconnected? Were you ready to pick up Book 2 at the end? Click through to the full blog to access the comments section, and share your thoughts! No spoilers, though – you can post those on GoodReads!

Review cross-posted to GoodReads.


Please keep your comments YA appropriate. Be patient! We want to hear from you, but comments are moderated, and may take some time to appear.