The Knife of Never Letting Go Review!

*cue trumpets* That's right! I finally finished The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness! The first book in the Chaos Walking series, and is I believe one of three books. What a read, ye gods this book was going to be the death of me! It took enough time to finish it let's not dawdle on the review.

Synopsis:
Todd lives in a town where woman don't exist anymore and he's the last boy in town. This means a lot of things for Todd, for the town. A boy growing up in a town of men in a world where thoughts ring out as clear as day. A town with a shady past cut off from the rest of the world and a boy who seems outside their normal. And then Todd finds the silence, slicing through the noise of men's thoughts like a razor and he's running, running, running.

Review:

4/5

I've never wanted to hate a book and love a book so much at once. Hence why it took so long to read. The first day I sat down with this book I wanted to burn it. This is one speshul, annoying,  frushtrating book. And yes, I know how I wrote it and I ain't fixing it! I cringe at it and have grown used to it. If you want to read this book it's words like that that you'll have to get used to. I highly, HIGHLY suggest you read the first couple of chapters in one sitting and then put it down. Rant to high heaven about it's spelling and it's weird fonts and everything that makes you think this is the first book you'll put down this year and scream at it and say 'I'm never picking this stupid book up again!'.

Then do one more thing- a favour to yourself really. Pick. Up. The. Book.

Say what?

PICK UP THE BOOK! *embodies the mom from the new karate kid movie. You know what I'm talking about. (and if for some reason you don't: watch this.)*

Then when you reach the end you can thank me. I swore I was going to hate this book and burn it, but I would read it because it's on my 2015 pop sugar list and I refuse to not read it if it's on my list. Then I read it and things changed. Manchee goes from unbearably annoying to a lovable, enjoyable character. Todd goes from not very enjoyable to that character you're rooting for through everything. And that ending, that ending Patrick Ness! OH THE FEELS! I need the next book, and if I didn't just buy eight more on top of the six I still have to read on my shelves I would finish work and go to the bookstore no stops in between.

STOP. Let's slow down and break it down.

1. That grammar and those words are painful, and at the start you think everyone's going to be talkin' speshul like and then you're so relieved when they don't! And there's weird font changes and random words... let me show you:

*These images are strictly for the intent of showing the uniqueness of the book, they are not intended to violate any copyrights. The writing and all it's glory belong to Patrick Ness and Candlewick Press. 

2. That ^ occurs a number of times. First thought when I saw it: what a waste of paper... You can read some of it, but it doesn't tell you anything important and it doesn't even make sense if you try to string it together, believe me I tried.

3. You quickly find out that all the quirky writing and fonts are to set the mood of the book. Different characters have different ways of talking and spelling and fonts. The pages of words tell you just how busy the world is, what it's like when you can hear everyone's thoughts.

Bottom line:

Let go of everything your brain is telling you is wrong and just read it, you will enjoy it.

WARNING:
If you have the same copy as above, when you get to the end and have read the short story and you see a 'read the next instalment in the Chaos Walking series... blah blah blah' and there's a picture and some blurbs beside it DON'T READ THEM because the third book description has a spoiler in it and now I'm mad.

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That's it for this series right now, at least until I get a few of my books out of my TBR pile. Be on the lookout for my next review for Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. I'm excited for this one, I've heard good things. So until then, my friends.

Everlost Review!

I know I intended to finish The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness first but I wasn't feeling it and decided to finish this series up! If you read my review for the last book (here) then you know I was a little weary of the third installment in this series, so let's get on to it and see if my predictions were true or not!

Synopsis:
Tatiana is stuck in Natatoria in a crumbling kingdom bound to the man she hated with a passion, but things change. Facing a war in her own mind, a constant fluctuation of anger and love Tatiana faces her own truths and sees first hand the deceit and lies that make up the kingdom. Left alone in a kingdom she must decide for herself to do what's easy or to do what's right.

Review:

3 or 3.5/5

Though this book was fun, it didn't have me gripping my phone in a death vice like the last one. I started this book right after I finished the second one and just finished it now. Unlike the previous one, this one didn't hold my attention very well. There's lots of good and not so good things I found with this book so I guess we should sift through that now.

The fear I had expressed in the last review was that we'd go back to under developed characters and a strange point of view. Thankfully I was wrong on the character point so let's all throw a mini dance party there! WOO! Tatchi is the character that throughout the series you know what she wants and what she's like. She's a mermaid who wants to live like a human, she wants choices, she wants to empower the female Mers and control her own destiny. Through Ash's eyes we learned a lot about Tatchi, so when this one came in her point of view it wasn't nearly as startling as I expected it to be. Points for Pandos.

The downfall was how achingly annoying Tatchi became. At times I wanted to shake some sense into the girl. I feel like the same points could have been made without it being drawn out for the majority of the book. Her love / hate promised feelings with Azor was giving me whiplash. I understand that the promise makes people act strange but this abusive relationship seemed like a stretch for a character that has always had more backbone than any of the ones before her. I won't go into details cause spoilers but I really don't feel like the extremity of the situation and the duration it was drawn out for fit this character. 

Points for Pandos again with the action, there was stuff happening in this book, albeit there were some faults here and there. If it wasn't a physical fight in this book it was mental. However, there was a slight downfall - the mental side of things didn't seem to have a whole lot of progression. Until towards the end of the book there didn't seem to be any earth shattering realizations here which meant a whole lot of scenarios that were basically the same situation rehashed in as many ways possible. On the other hand the physical fighting was progressing, you could see the reason behind the actions be it. Azor's anger, or his greed, Jacob's loyalty and desires which were changing and progressing through the book which made Tatiana's mental standstill all the more frustrating to me.

Unfortunately it wasn't until the mental game starting progressing that I finally found myself able to engage. After that, things got a lot more interesting, unfortunately this affected how I approached the rating of this read. The start of the book is a three, it was good not great and didn't hold my attention well. Had the ending been attached to a better beginning I might have boosted it to a 4 but it's pulled down and is stuck with a 3.5.

Overall Series:

 Overall I would say this series was enjoyable, and I would definitely recommend it for a younger reader than myself. There's a lot of series and books that can cross the age gap but this one doesn't seem to quite have that yet. If the first and the last books were like the second book and matched in intensity and purpose this would have been a phenomenal series! In the meantime if you want something fun and easy to read this is your find.