This is the second book in the Chaos Walking trilogy, the sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go. The last 150 pages were separated by a work day for me, and it was possibly the least productive day ever. I should’ve just finished the damn thing at the circ desk, except that the children would have been scared by my gasps of shock.
I won’t say anything about the plot for those of you who haven’t read Knife yet, but… it is an even better book than Knife in the same way that Catching Fire is an even better book than Hunger Games. Both Knife and Hunger Games are about the personal journeys of the protagonists. They introduce the characters and the world, and these are pretty dark worlds, especially for YA — but at their core they are adventure stories.
Ask and Catching Fire ramp it up a few notches: the politics are more complicated, the parallels to our world more powerful, the grey areas more gloriously, agonizingly grey. Chaos Walking isn’t getting the press that Hunger Games is in this country, but if you care about good science fiction or good world-building, whether or not you read YA, you need to be reading this trilogy now. I have both books and am happy to lend to locals.
Also reviewed (with more specifics and therefore more spoilers) by: my Cybils buddy Sheila Ruth of Wands and Worlds, the science fiction review journal Strange Horizons (which includes the awesome phrase, “Ness is not a plot hack like Shakespeare”), and Things Mean a Lot.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Sheila Ruth // Feb 10, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Thanks for linking to my review. Great review! I’m amazed that you were able to be so spoiler-free. This was an amazingly powerful book. It was my 14-year-old son’s favorite book of the year. (And he’s read it three times).
2 jaime // Feb 10, 2010 at 9:38 pm
me! me!
3 Martini-Corona // Apr 23, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Huh. Finished the 2nd book last night, and I have to say, I really disliked both Chaos Walking books — the first has a neat premise but goes downhill, and the 2nd was extremely aggravating all the way through (but I finally finished it, because I’m a completist). We should talk more in person. But I can pass your copies along to Jaime if you like — I’d be very interested in her take.
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