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.

3.5 stars. I liked book one better. I just hate too much desperation. I want a breakthrough, DAMN IT. It is proving to be so emotionally torturous that I am not feeling anything anymore. And yes, I cried over Davy, freakin' sue me!
And the ending was SUPER BAD. I hated the ending, and another stupid cliff-hanger... UGH, I am not happy!
Let us hope book the third proves to be anything of worth or I swear I am shipping a poison bomb to Patrick Ness! Maybe we can have a little Schröddinger's Patrick and make a freakin' breakthrough in Science. At least we can figure something worthy out of little Patrick here.
“Is he dead ? or not dead? We can therefore deduce that Patrick is in three positions... Alive, dead, or in superposition. Hmmm... gets you to think no ? “

I was very impressed with this one. I think now that I am familiar with the writing style I was able to see more of the story behind it. I enjoyed being able to read not only Todd's side of the story but Viola's as well.
Something I always look for in books is character development and this one impressed me with the chnages both characters underwent.
The villian of this book was also well written. There were moments when even I felt manipulated by their words and the ending....I can't wait to read the next one!

The Ask and the Answer By Patrick Ness Review

Patrick Ness has succeeded in continuing a truly unique young adult story without all the trappings on most of the other series in that genre. The Ask and the Answer is the second book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness.

The first book in the series, The Knife of Never Letting Go, was a fast paced story of the chase of Todd Hewitt across largely uninhabited frontier land of a newly colonised planet with new comer Viola Eade, who's parents were killed in the crash landing of their scout vessel.

In this instalment of the story, Todd and Viola are caught in between two warring factions when Major Prentiss (now President Prentiss) finds resistance to his hostile takeover of Haven (renamed New Prentisstown) in the form of Mistress Coyle (a local Healer) and her reformed gorilla group from the Spackle Wars, The Answer.

The Answer snatch the uncooperative Viola away to help in their bombing raids of New Prentisstown. Whilst Todd is held captive and manipulated into working for President Prentiss's cause.
This book is written in an amazingly graphic and compelling manner, with the change in font for both main characters POV and that of the “noise”. I felt like screaming at the characters at points when I knew they would be walking into a trap, and crying with them in others when everything seemed so without hope. These emotions, I believe are the signs of a well written book. Can not recommend this series enough.

4/5 Stars

As riveting as the first book. A key theme in this installment is “we are the choices we make,” which often serves to illustrate how most things in life are not black and white. There is not simply good vs. evil, but rather many shades of grey in between. And how do you cope with that reality when you are merely 14? When you are forced to make life-changing decisions, without knowing which possibility is more “right”? I'll be interested to see how Ness ties everything up in the third book. . . .

The Knife of Never Letting Go ???????????????The Ask and the Answer ???????????????

In this second book of the trilogy, we are in new territory for me. When I originally received this trilogy as a gift I never made it past the first book.

The plot is distinctly separated into two halves, one for Viola and one for Todd. Todd is grappling with figuring out the truth and the overwhelming strength of the Mayor. His whole world view was turned upside down in the first book, and he wants to deeply to find out it was all a lie and accept an easy truth. Viola knows exactly where she stands in the civil war brewing in this second book. She has those beliefs challenged and has to quickly decide who she is going to believe and trust. Throughout it all, the unwavering connection between Todd and Viola was so incredibly compelling. I adored this series so far, and highly recommend it.

Confession time! Chaos Walking wasn't even on my radar until I saw the trailer. While watching it, I thought the subject was really new and interesting. Then I found out that it was actually a book series, and the next day I had all the books of the trilogy in my hands.

The Knife Of Never Letting Go was outstanding! Totally blown by it. It's a full-fledged adventure that can preserve its mystery to the end while the action literally never stops. It still has emotional moments in all this activity and ends with a stunning cliffhanger. Solid, 5-star read. I was very excited to read the second book and thankfully; it doesn't disappoint.

The Ask And The Answer continues where The Knife of Never Letting Go left things off, and this time we are in a very different environment.. Because of the nature of this new atmosphere, it is not as action filled as the first book, but it fills this gap with many fresh questions and enriches it by questioning concepts such as racism, sexism and politics. Not a deep dive, but an improvement considering the first book. But I'm here to have fun so I have aaaaaabsolutely no problems. With its dual PoV format, it never stops being intriguing. And as a character driven reader, I enjoyed Todd and Viola's development.

Two things I can mention as a downside is that it is much easier to guess the cliffhanger this time. Rather than waiting for what would happen; after a point, I waited to see how will a certain thing will happen. It's Chekhov's gun. And the other thing, if I have to nit pick, it did not need to be 500+ pages long. But in the end, it really doesn't feel like it dragged.

In the end, it's still a brilliant book. Can't wait to read the conclusion.

You can read the full review on my blog!

Another 4 stars, even though my heart gets a little more broken every time.



MY THOUGHTS: 

Seeing as I immediately started this audiobook after the first, I had high hopes. And they were met!

I didn't slam any tables, but that's only because I was in shock. 

This book was, in a lot of ways, different from The Knife of Never Letting Go. For the most part, it was slower, darker, and relied more on character building than action. 

Now that I think about it, this book had a lot less going on when it comes to travel and similar things. The characters mostly stayed where they began from the beginning of the book, so this book contained a lot of internal conflict, plot twists, and suspense. 

Again, there were a few parts in the middle when I wasn't paying attention much, but I'm pretty sure that's my fault. However, the story really began to pick up in the last 10 or so chapters. I won't say much about this, except that so much happened towards the end that it made up for the parts which were not as action-packed or surprising in general.

And once again, something sad happened at the end! Apparently, I still have not learned my lesson.

Never trust Patrick Ness, I suppose.

My thoughts on characters: 

Todd: Can I just hug Todd? He needs a hug, or ten. I liked him even more in this installment. 

Viola: As I predicted, I cared more about Viola in this book than I did in the previous one. She needs hugs too. In addition to Nick Podehl's narration for Todd's POV, Angela Dowe also did a nice job with Viola's POV this time. 

Davy: He doesn't get a POV or anything, I just wanted to point out that he got some character development. 5 STARS, DAVY. 

Angharrad (the horse): I think we all know why this horse was in the book.

I'm a bit nervous for Monsters of Men, but we'll see how it goes.

4.5/5

THIS TRILOGY IS MY SHIT! While the beginning chapters felt a tad slow, Ness's masterful writing kept me completely engaged as the story didn't need constant action to be captivating. One of the things I loved most was the way story switched perspectives between Todd and Viola. It gave a well-rounded view of the story and let me connect with each character on a deeper level.

But oh man, Davy's death... Let's just say it hit me hard. Even now, I feel a hollowness inside. I will not be able to recover from it!

The final two chapters of the book were pure intensity! The way everything unfolded had me curling up while reading in bed. In fact, while reading that grand scene, I couldn't help but picture Denis Villeneuve bringing it to life on the big screen.

Overall, “The Ask and the Answer” was a haunting journey filled with well-developed characters and beautiful writing. I'm onto the final book in the trilogy and pretty sure it'll be the death of me.