So for the entire month of February I have been Patrick Ness crazy! Like, CRAZY!! I had never read any Ness before so I thought I'd pick up one or two of his books as I had heard only good things about his writing. This led to me buying almost everything he has ever written and reading them all back to back, without even pausing to write a review in-between. So, let me begin this review by apologizing to my GR friends for the onslaught of Ness-related reviews coming your way today! Sorry (not sorry). 
 The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first installment of The Chaos Walking Trilogy. The book opens in Prentisstown, a fictional town in a fictional world. The occupants of this town are predominately farmers, entirely male and, oh, they can all hear each other's every thought. 
 The reader is immediately introduced, in the form of first person narration, to the first protagonist, who remains with us for all three of the books, Todd. Now I initially found Todd an unlikable main character: he appears moody, quarrelsome and quick-tempered, but it was something I could abide with, as I was foreseeing a personal transformation as the book progressed. It transpires that events in Todd's short life gave him every right to act as the petulant child that he is. It is the honest, considerate man he quickly becomes who gained my heart, though. 
 Now I know that many people find untrustworthy and initially unrelatable characters a bit of a faux pas, but this only shows that Ness is not afraid to transgress the boundaries of what is deemed 'acceptable' in writing. 
 And he doesn't stop there. 
 This book is a series of shock after shock as Ness continually takes you to the limits of your expectations and then transgresses them. This book features continual cliffhangers and false hope as Ness lays the foundations for the climax for the novel. Or should I say climaxes, plural. This book is synonymous with choppy waters: you crested a wave not knowing if you'd find calm waters or rapids beyond it. 
 And one such climacteric moment was the introduction of our second protagonist, Viola. The chance meeting between Todd and herself altered the course of the story and aligned two separate stories as one. 
 The first-person style of narration highlighted that the inner-thoughts of the protagonist weren't always what was revealed in his Noise (or, thoughts). Noise is a precarious thing, only revealing a portion of the man beneath the outward portrayal of his thoughts. This, combined with Ness' beautiful writing gave a rich, dense narrative that stunned, staggered and surprised me. 
 I have honestly never read something so richly-coated with action and substance in such equal measures. This book, and this series, is like no other!