The Knife Of Never Letting Go

Todd lives in Prentisstown, where everyone can hear each other’s thoughts. He can even hear his dog Manchee’s thoughts. But one day, when Todd hears a silence never known to Prentisstown, he goes home and tells his guardians, Ben and Cillian, what he heard, so they usher him out of Prentisstown to get to a safer place. He runs into a girl named Viola and figures out, she is the silence that he heard. No one can hear her thoughts, when she can hear everyone else’s. Everyone in Prentisstown is looking for Viola, so Todd is determined to get out of Prentisstown and help her become safe. But they are being chased, and everyone can hear Todd’s thoughts. How is anyone supposed to hide when you can be heard for 10 miles away?

Question 10:

The way the author wrote the book was with short forms of some specific words like ‘cuz’ for because, and ’em for them. This was effective because Todd, the main character who narrates the story, isn’t very good with vocabulary and speaking. He doesn’t use good grammar and this shows exactly what he’s thinking. I thought it was really smart of Patrick Ness, the author, to write this way. It was very clever. Also, Viola pretends to be from the country and have an accent and the author shows that really well by using short forms and the way things are spelt.

Question 7:

Todd reminds me of Mickey Bolitar in the book, Shelter. Todd reminds me of Mickey because they are both funny in a sarcastic kind of way. Mickey is always talking about how cool he is, but as a joke, almost like Todd thinking about how he is always right. They are somewhat the same with who they hang out with too. Todd is always with Viola, and Viola always speaks her mind, just like Ema, who always hangs out with Mickey.

Question 4:

I found it surprising when Aaron came back. He got attacked by alligators but he somehow lived through it. Though his face was messed up, and his skin was ruined. I also found it surprising that Manchee lived through getting his tail chopped off. Manchee must have lost a lot of blood. How he lived, it beats me.