The book that I read is called The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. The book is set in the future on a new planet. Planet Earth has been overpopulated and polluted. The men who live on the new planet have a disease that makes people hear each other’s thoughts. So that means there is no privacy.
The main character and narrator is Todd Hewitt, a twelve year old boy who lives on the new planet in a town called Prentisstown. Prentisstown is run by an evil mayor whose goal is to take over the new planet. Todd is about to become thirteen when he will be recruited into the army, but he runs away into the swamp so they can’t recruit him. Before he runs away, his godparents give him a knife he can use to protect himself.
While he’s escaping he meets Viola Eade a girl who crashed from a spaceship onto Todd’s planet and she helps Todd escape from the army. Todd and Viola’s goal is to get to a city called Haven where the population is large enough to stop the army. On their journey to Haven, Viola gets captured by the army and Todd and Manchee, Todd’s dog, go after her even though Todd had become very sick. He got sick from an alien whose blood had mixed with his. They manage to rescue but right outside of Haven, Viola is shot by a member of the army and she needs immediate help. Todd runs into Haven asking for help but no one’s there except the evil mayor who says “Welcome to New Prentisstown.” The evil mayor had taken over Haven before Todd and Viola could get there. There are two more books in the series so what seems like a bad ending may change.
In the beginning of the book, Todd says, “I am Todd Hewitt. I will be a man in twenty nine days time.” Todd is so concerned with being a man, but by the end of the book he realizes that he was always a man and that the evil mayor never was one.
I enjoyed this book a lot. It was very good. I love sci-fi and this book was just that. It also was very detailed in a good way. I also liked that it told you all the characters’ emotions like they were real. I think someone who likes sci-fi would love this book because it has aliens and spaceships and things. I would rate this book four out of five stars.