The Knife of Never Letting Go; The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness

Todd Hewitt's birthday is approaching, and on that date he will be a man; the last new man in a village without women.  All girls and women on the planet died when Todd was a baby, stricken by a form of germ warfare that caused all men's thoughts to be audible... or so he was told.  But grim and dangerous truths are beginning to unravel the world that Todd knows.

The Knife of Never Letting Go is a tense read.  Todd and his new friend spend most of the narrative on the run or fighting for their lives, and it's exhausting to keep up with them.  Their confusion, exhaustion, and fear make for a convincing and compelling read, and this book has won a number of awards already.

When a whole book feels like it's approaching a climax, it's very hard to put it down. When the book ends with a gut-wrenching twist, a reader will be thankful to have the sequel already on hand.  I read straight through these two books, and am now waiting for the concluding volume which should arrive later this year.  The Ask and the Answer is less nerve wracking than The Knife of Never Letting Go, but maintains the tension that characterizes this series. 

The narrative voice is split between Todd and Viola, both being quite strong.  Usually, I find myself a little irritated when an author introduces a second narrator, but I love Viola and enjoyed hearing her thoughts.  Patrick Ness does a good job establishing his characters distinct voices; Todd's dialect only grated on me for a couple of pages before I settled into it's rhythm, and Viola's standard English is clean and strong.

Elements of the story that annoyed me a little: Todd and Viola are too good at everything, I can't buy that people in a sparsely populated survival culture would express this many political machinations, and supporting characters can be flat, inexplicably brutal, or lazily sociopathic.