The Knife of Never Letting Go

The Knife of Never Letting Go is a 2007 young adult science fiction novel by Patrick Ness. It is the first book in the Chaos Walking trilogy that also includes The Ask and the Answer (2009) and Monsters of Men (2010). The Knife of Never Letting Go tells the story of Todd Hewitt, the only boy in a small settlement called Prentisstown. Todd lives among 146 men on a planet called New World, where the men can hear each other’s thoughts, a phenomenon they call Noise. The novel explores themes of manhood, loyalty, whether it can be ethical to kill, and more.

Plot Summary

When the story begins, Todd’s thirteenth birthday is one month away. Boys officially become men on their thirteenth birthdays, but Todd does not know how it happens. The men hide their thoughts from him so that he can’t know.

One day, Todd’s guardians—Ben and Cillian—send him into the swamp to pick apples with his dog, Manchee. Todd finds a pocket of silence in the swamp, which he describes as a hole in the noise. At home, information about the silence leaks out of Noise.