The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

When this book first caught my eye I thought it was going to be another teen novel I would read and be vastly disappointed by, in fact it was the complete opposite. This book follows a boy called Todd and his dog called Manchee. They live in "The New World", which is where settlers went after they were unable to live on Earth. Everyone in his town is male because an animal species called "the Spackle" released a germ which killed all the women and half the men. In addition to this all the men can hear each other's thoughts as a side effect of the germ. He is waiting to become a man, which in his town is when you turn 13. Todd is the last boy in his town to become a man and because of this he has few friends. If he was on earth he would have been 14 by now but the calendar system is different on "The New World". Soon, Todd and Manchee find a place in the town where not a single thought, man or animal's, can be heard. This leads to his adopted parents having to send him away because if the people in the town find out they would hunt down Todd. After he leaves the town, Todd finds what is causing this spot of silence, a girl.

There are so many things I love about this book. The voice of Todd means the spelling of many of the words is phonetic, which adds real personality to the book. It took me a while to come to terms with the underlying themes of the book but once I did I realised how topical this book is. You don't have to fully understand the themes, I didn't the first couple of times I read it, but I really enjoyed them being there. This is the first part of the Chaos Walking trilogy, and I can gladly say each book is as good as the one before it. The book won the Booktrust Teenage Prize, the Guardian Award and the James Tiptree Jr. Award. These were all well deserved and I'm surprised it didn't win more. Due to the fame of this book, it is in most libraries as well as book stores. If not, your local library will be glad to order the book for you if you ask them!