Manchee the Dog is my Effing Hero

So last month I picked up The Knife of Never Letting Go at Borders, pretty much on a whim. It sat on my bookshelf for like three days before I finished The Hunger Games (fourth time) and decided to give The Knife a shot. Five hours and 500 pages later, I went to bed.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't get any sleep at all that night. Holy gosh, Patrick Ness is an unbelievable author. Other than perhaps The Hunger Games, no other book I have read has captivated me that much. Even though Ness didn't appear to be pulling any tricks (such as ending each chapter with a cliff-hanger), I cared so much about Todd and Viola (and Manchee... especially Manchee) that I was forced to keep reading. Seriously though, Manchee might be the greatest talking dog in the history of Literature.

(Quick note - In the world of The Knife, every man has something called Noise, which basically entails hearing ever single thought anyone nearby is thinking. Got it? Alright, let's move along.)

There was a certain aspect of Ness' writing that impressed me above all else. Even though Todd (the main protagonist) had a very distinct (otherwise know as illiterate) voice, Ness wrote the story in such a way that you were allowed (not forced) to look past his lack of "educashun." I'll be honest - I really didn't like Todd at all through the first few chapters. However, as the story moved on I began to empathize with him. What would people think of me if they were attacked by my every thought? I don't even want to consider it.  Eventually Todd's choices revealed that he was a whole effing (a Todd word) lot smarter than me, and probably a better person as well. I won't give away anything else about the plot, because it is really effing good.

Seriously, just read it.