"The Knife of Never Letting Go", and a terrible secret revealed.

Ok, third feature... so before we get too chummy, I've got a confession to make: I'm a 28 year old bookaholic (or bibliophile if you want to play it classy), with an affinity for Young Adult fiction, but I only read To Kill a Mockingbird earlier this year, to the shock (and perhaps disgust) of some of my colleagues and library borrowers. What's more, to force myself to start reading it (continuing reading it was easy!). You see, when I get told too many times that I have to read a book, it turns me off it. I'm not quite sure why this is, but it does. On the plus side, it's given me further cushioning from reading Dan Brown or Fifty Shades, but it also nearly stopped me watching The West Wing, reading Mockingbird - or reading Patrick Ness' The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Because Patrick Ness and his recent novels for Young Adults have received an awful lot of acclaim. His Chaos Walking trilogy (of which Knife is the first, followed by The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men), won him oodles of the top book prizes (including the Carnegie). His follow up - A Monster Calls, based on an idea from YA fiction wunderkind Siobhan Dowd before her death - if anything earned more praise, and a second Carnegie Medal. Finally, I gave in, and read a book I knew logically that I should love.

And boy, did I love it. Here's the basic plot, with mild spoilers:

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown, the one surviving settlement on New World. There are no girls left, no women; just men. Todd and the men of Prentisstown are infected with a virus that produces "Noise", meaning that everyone can hear what all the men are thinking. And yet, days before the birthday that will make Todd a man, he discovers that Prentisstown has been lying to him his whole life. When Todd discovers that most impossible of things - a girl (and what's more, one without Noise) - they must both run for their lives. Because Prentisstown wants them, and it won't stop until it gets them.

The narrative is present-tense and first person, getting you well and truly into Todd's head - and unfortunately into the head of everyone else he can hear. The characterisation is masterful, and everyone you meet feels real and alive. This makes Aaron, the town's malevolent and imposing preacher, a terrifying character to behold. But it's also one of the things that elevates the book from being a really good adventure, to being a multi-layered masterpiece. The building relationship between Todd and Viola, from reluctantly protecting each other to... well... willingly, determinedly protecting each other, is perhaps the strongest YA book coupling since His Dark Materials's Will and Lyra (though Katniss from The Hunger Games is probably the best heroine since Lyra). In fact, Ness seems to write with a similar scale of ambition to HDM's Philip Pullman, and with as electrifying results.

Oh, and Todd's devoted dog Manchee (who also has Noise) really does show that a dog is a man's best friend. Not that Todd's a man yet. Or is he? What it is to be a man is a major theme of the novel, as is war. Are there times when the stronger man in fact lets go of the knife? And what dark secret is compelling Prentisstown to chase Todd and Viola?

You may have been one of the lucky many who were given a free copy of the book in this year's World Book Night. But either way, I urge you to read it, whether you're 13, or 83. It's not a particularly happy book, or a hope-filled one. But my goodness, it's a stonker of a story.

I hope saying that doesn't put you off.



Patrick Ness' new book for adults, The Crane Wife, is out now.