Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Chaos Walking series

Since I read all three of these books, by author Patrick Ness, back-to-back-to-back and in very quick succession, I decided to do one review for all of them. Let's jump right in because there's just so much!  The fun/hard part is to summarize without giving too much away - I don't want to spoil your reading experience!

You think your library is noisy right after school?  What would you do if you could hear the thoughts of person and animal around you, all the time? All that's left of the settlers of Prentisstown are men and a secret, hidden deep inside all that Noise.  Todd is the youngest person in Prentisstown and he's just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man.  But one day Todd encounters something he's never known: silence, like a void in his world.  From that moment on everything Todd ever knew, or thought he knew, about his world changes.

What follows is a thrilling tale of daring do!  Okay so nothing near that amount of cheese - I've just always wanted to write that in a review of something.  Actually this series is three books that will challenge what you've always thought about your private thoughts, emotions, and feelings.  Ness takes the genre of dystopia, sprinkles in a little sci-fi, and the next thing you know you're hooked.  A small word of caution for the more squeamish reader: because the story is told in first person and thoughts flow freely, it's a bit like reading stream of consciousness writing and when things get violent (as they sometimes do), you might want to skim.  A small word of caution for the more empathetic reader: you're going to be so frustrated with yourself because you will identify with everyone who narrates when its their turn. 

I know this really isn't a lot of information, especially about the second and third books, but consider this a teaser.  And don't go reading the summaries somewhere or you'll spoil it for yourself!  Don't say I didn't warn you.

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