The Knife of Never Letting Go

Ness, P. (2008) The Knife of Never Letting Go. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
The knife of Never Letting Go is a fantasy fiction novel about a boy named Todd who is raised in a town of men.  He is the youngest living male in his town.  The women all supposedly died off due to a "noise" virus but the men survived and can all hear each other's thoughts.  Come to find out they are all aliens.  His guardians due to his parents deaths have planned all his life for him to escape just before he becomes a man.  They give him a map and a sack and send him away to find a place called Haven.  He comes across a girl named Viola, another alien whose ship has crashed and her parents are dead, in the swamp and they quickly connect and become close.  He falls for her even though he thought all women had died.  A very long story, short, they are on the run from the town's people and the corrupt mayor they meet new people who help them along the way.  Too many bad things happen along the adventure to explain in this short blog.  With a wounded Viola, they eventually make it to Haven to discover the Mayor has beat them there and is now a President.  To obtain help for a dying Viola he surrenders even though they have been through Hell.  I was not very fond of this type of story.  I am not a big fan of science fiction with space and aliens but you will see colonization and adventure in this tale.  I also could see some dystopia, apocalyptic and Extra-Senory Perception (telepathy) in the story line.  I felt the book was all over the place, but thought that children who love sci-fi will love it.  This book is a Trilogy in the series Chaos Walking.  The next two books are The Ask and the Answered and Monsters of Men.