The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him — something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World?

I will start by saying this book made me cry TWICE. The emotion put into this book is outstanding and you get so attatched to the characters, you feel that they are real people, living on some other planet. The one thing I did not like about this book was its similarity to some other novels, like Uglies. In TKONLG Tod is only a month away from his 13th birthday where he will become a man (Tally becomes 16 and pretty), he ends up not being able to turn 13 in the town and must rescue Viola (Tally is forbidden to get the operation until she finds Shay). They are running away from a large group of men that are after them (Tall is running from the Specials), they find another settlement that will help them and remind them how bad it was were they came from (Tally finds The Smoke and wants to stay there) They learn the evil secrets hidden within the town (Tally finds out the secrets about the opertion). There are more similarities but it will give away parts of both books if I continue. Aside from the insane similarities, the book was one of the most well-written novels I have read this year. I loved the idea of the Noise and also the Spackle, even though the part with the Spackle made me cry...and I would have to say my favorite character was Manchee, Tod's dog. He added humor to an otherwise rather seriously themed book. Overall, I would definitly reccommend this book (unless your a spelling nazi, because there are tons of INTENTIONAL spelling mistakes in the book, so much infact that even I started getting iritated).

My Rating: 4.75