Book Review
Title: The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking #2)
Author: Patrick Ness
Published: 2009
Rating: 85/100
With the "Chaos Walking" big budget movie adaptation fast approaching (2019) I thought now would be the perfect time to write a review for the 2nd book in the series, The Knife of Never Letting Go. With the legendary Doug Liman directing (Edge of Tomorrow) and Tom Holland (Spider-Man) teaming up with Daisy Ridley (Star Wars), Chaos Walking is shaping up to be one of the year's biggest blockbusters. I highly recommend reading the first few books before it hits cinemas.
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| Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley star in Chaos Walking (2018) |
I read The Knife of Never Letting Go in early 2017 and gave it a 7/10. It was a bit all over the place, but somehow it worked. It was a YA novel that felt more aimed at children than young adults. Whilst reading The Knife I remember thinking Patrick Ness was like an artist wildly chucking buckets of paint at a canvas hoping that the end result would be a masterpiece worthy of adorning the walls of literature's great halls. While it wasn't a masterpiece, it was certainly a book worth appreciating. Appreciate it I did, so much so that I was motivated enough to download The Ask and the Answer a few months later. I was keen to discover if Ness had become more calculated and accurate with his paint brush. Thankfully, he had.
The Ask and the Answer is a better book in just about every way a book can trump it's predecessor. The annoying protagonist Todd, the opposite of a Mary Sue, who made The Knife painful in parts, matures in The Ask and becomes not just tolerable, but relatable, even likeable. Todd goes from being a little brat in The Knife to a man in The Ask. He still makes mistakes and a great many of his decisions will have you slapping your forehead, it's how he deals with the mistakes that has changed. Every time he makes a mistake in The Ask he gets back on his feet, dusts it off, puffs out his chest and learns from the experience. I never cared about Todd before and I went into The Ask thinking "here we go again". However, at about the half-way mark Ness turned me. I found myself rooting for the lad and hoping he would see the light, break free of his shackles and get the girl in the end.
The narrative, which was already great, became more compelling and interesting in The Ask, with politics deftly weaved around it to give a smart edge The Knife was lacking. Characters who seemed so black and white in The Knife were suddenly very grey in The Ask, so grey that it's like they were from A Game of Thrones. Simple characters like Davey evolved and changed, flowering into complex people who surprised me in every chapter they featured in.
What I liked most of all was that The Ask plunged me even deeper into darkness. The Knife was dark enough to make a young teenager feel uncomfortable. The Ask takes it to a whole new level, upping the stakes and covering the pages in blood. Don't get me wrong, this series is still suitable for teenagers... teenagers who yawned during that scene of Game of Thrones when The Mountain crushed the Red Viper's head into mush with his bare hands (sorry to ruin the show if you're not up to that episode yet). Ok, even though I'm exaggerating this book is definitely not suitable for those aged under 12.
The last comment I'll make is that this is a book worthy of your time because of Ness's writing. He writes like no-one you've ever read before. He is that artist who is brave enough to chuck words on pages like a wild painter hurling buckets at walls. He takes risks. He fools the reader into thinking they're reading a textbook adventure novel when what they're really reading is a politically charged book that tackles serious issues related to war, abuse and power.
Check it out, I promise you won't be able to guess how it ends and you'll be lining up to buy Chaos Walking #3 and tickets to the movie on opening weekend. I know I will.
Who will like this book?
Anyone who thought Tomorrow When The War Began needed more blood and aliens.
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