The Knife of Never Letting Go

The Knife of Never Letting Go is a young-adult science fiction novel written by British-American author Patrick Ness. It is the first book in the Chaos Walking series, followed by The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men. The story follows Todd Hewitt, a 12-year-old boy who runs away from Prentisstown, a town where everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts.

About The Knife of Never Letting Go in brief

Summary The Knife of Never Letting GoThe Knife of Never Letting Go is a young-adult science fiction novel written by British-American author Patrick Ness. It is the first book in the Chaos Walking series, followed by The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men. The novel was celebrated by critics, and won annual awards including the Booktrust Teenage Prize, the Guardian Award, and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. The story follows Todd Hewitt, a 12-year-old boy who runs away from Prentisstown, a town where everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts. Todd has been told that all the women and nearly all the men on New World were killed in a war with the Spackle that occurred around the time of his birth. The Spackle are New World’s native inhabitants and are blamed for the release of a ‘germ’ that caused the majority of deaths and was particularly fatal to women. As a side effect of the virus, the remaining men in P Trentisstown can hear each other’s thoughts, described as an ever-present cascade of ‘Noise’ Todd and his dog, Manchee, discover a lone patch of silence in a local swamp.

When Todd explains the silence to Ben and Cillian, his adoptive parents, his Noise accidentally projects the discovery to the entire town. The two men immediately force him to leave Prent isstown, with just a satchel of supplies and Manchese to accompany him. Todd realises that he, infected with the germ, might transmit the germ to the girl and kill her. After this incident she finally tells Todd her name: Viola. Todd and Viola are found by a woman, Hildy, at the nearest town, Farbranch. She tells Todd that the germ is not fatal for women and does not affect the fact that none of the women have Noise at all. They hope to find a cure for Noise for it, and flee for Haven, where it is rumoured there may be a transmitter for it. At nightfall, an army of men from the town arrives and burns down the tower, killing all those who will not join them.