Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Julia Reviews The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Title/Author: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Publisher/Year Published: December 2008 by Walker
How I got this book: The Library
Why I read this book: This book was recommended to me by Hayley, Susan, Kritka and rrteenlibrarian on my reading slump post
Rating: 4 stars

Well guys, I did it! I finished a book from my View from Page Thirty series that was actually worth adding on to the review. A few weeks back I posted my initial reaction to The Knife of Never Letting Go. The general sentiment was that it was pretty darn good and I wanted to continue with it. Here was my overview reaction:
"I am really curious to see how the story unfolds and what the rules and limitations of this world are. It sounds like a different twist on the dystopian thing, rather than just the controlling government makes us do something strange that our main character is rebelling against. I want to know more and can't wait to continue on!"
Well it didn't completely fall into that general dystopian genre, but it didn't stay as unique as I wanted it to. A few chapters after my initial reaction, things started moving into normal dystopian YA territory. Our hero was becoming special, some of the things I really enjoyed fell apart when things were reveled, and I was not as entertained as I wanted to be. 

I had high hopes for this book, and I wasn't necessarily not entertained. It was a good book to read, just it feel into old tropes as the book went on that I thought it was breaking away from. It also ended on a cliff hanger which really bothered me. It's book one! Usually book two is the cliffhanger. I really like it when my books wrap up, even if only a little. Thinking more about the ending, I guess it could be considered wrapped up, but I know that it's not and it bothers me.

Surprisingly, the narration did not bother me like I thought it may. I didn't mind Todd's colloquial phrasing and spelling of certain things. His being 14 annoyed me a few times like when his pride got in the way of doing things that made the most freaking sense (like with the book). But whatever, he's 14 and it fits with his characterization. No points off. It just was a personal pet peeve.

I really liked the pace in the first 30 or so pages, and I am happy to say that this story did not drag. It clipped along pretty much the entire journey. The plot was always moving the characters forward and into new adventures on the way to their goal.

Overall, it wasn't bad but it wasn't as good as I was thinking it was going to be from my first 30 page visit. Am I glad I read it? Sure. Am I going to read on? Maybe? I haven't decided. It may be after a while but I haven't ruled out coming back to this series. Just not right now.


Thanks for the recommendation guys! I can't wait to take a look at another one off the slumplist! By the way, if anyone wanted to view the compiled slumplist, I put it into a google drive document here. It's all messy and just my compilation of the comments people left on the original post. But just in case you wanted to see it, there it is :)

2 comments:

  1. I really liked the first one but was a bit disappointed with the rest of the series. Something just didn't quite work for me. However, I think I'm the minority with that opinion.

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  2. I recently bought this one and I want to love it so I'm a little sad to hear that it doesn't really stand out from the rest of the books in this genre. Oh well I still like this author and want to read this series so I'm going to give it a try
    Thanks for the great review!

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