The Ask and the Answer

After reading and loving “The Knife Of Never Letting Go”, and letting this trilogy rest for a year, I wanted to return to New World to see what's happening next.

The book starts right after the abrupt but awesome ending of the first. Everything seems lost and without hope. Good premise, right? Yeah, but it still left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Everything that I loved about the first book -the interesting narrative, the powerful characters, the scifi elements...- is falling flat here.

“The Ask And The Answer” in its whole, is a book about dictatorship, and all the problems that come with it. Still very good written (I'm beginning to love Patrick Ness's writing style), but nothing new and interesting. There's the dictator with his brainwashed army, the few citizens that rise against him and all the fighting and cruelty that naturally comes with this constellation.

The “Noise” that made the first book so interesting in the first place, is just a byproduct. The only interesting change was the mayors ability to use it as a weapon. But even that fell short. I hope this gets more fleshed out in the final book.

But then again, I'm not really sure if I'll read the last one.
The ending felt way too forced. Like Ness wanted to create the most interesting cliffhanger that he could, and ruined it. There's just so much happening at once all of a sudden, that even a fictional story like this feels unbelievable.

Though mostly good written and with a nice pace, I just didn't care for the characters anymore. Not as I did in the first book.

Full review at SFF Book Revew.

This was a blast! I'm always a little worried about the middle part of trilogies but Patrick Ness pulled it off beautifully. If you liked The Knife of Never Letting Go, you will like this as well.
It starts out much more quitely than book one but once the new situation is introduced, Todd and Viola barely get a moment of peace.

I was most fascinated by the psychological games, the manipulation, and the amazing (although often scary) characters. Can't wait to finish the trilogy.