"If you've ever felt that the ability to hear other peoples thoughts would be enlightening, this book takes that idea and destroys it. In a town where everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts, Todd Hewitt discovers a secret, one that turns his entire world, his entire life, upside down. It's an intense, edge of your seat thriller that grabs you from the first page and never lets you go." Pros: It’s obvious that New World and Prentisstown are settlement’s
from space travelers, though Todd’s life is one is simple farm work.
Ness keeps the reader hooked by giving away small clues that
Prentisstown is not as rural as it seems nor even on the planet Earth by
mentioning the twin moons in the night sky and other subtle hints/ How
Ness really packs on the suspense by letting the reader know that
turning into a man in Prentisstown is a very bad thing but he doesn’t
outright say why, the reader is always guessing.
Cons: Though it’s understood that Todd is not meant to be very
bright, his vernacular spelling and grammar are maddening at first but
the reader eventually gets used to it.
Full Review
Todd Hewitt is a month away from turning thirteen and then he’ll be
considered a man. He lives in the small settlement of Prentisstown with
Ben and Cillian and his dog Manchee. And the first thing we learn is
that Manchee can talk or more accurately, Todd can read Manchees
thoughts. But this trait is nothing special as every person, man, boy,
animal, can hear each other’s thoughts. They call it Noise and it’s been
that way since Todd was born.
He doesn’t remember a time when the noise didn’t exist, all he
knows is that he can hear it, all the time, non-stop, as can everyone else. Nor does he remember
his mother who died when the Spackle, the original people of New World,
released a germ in their war against the settlers of Prentisstown which
killed all the women and made it so all the remaining survivors could
hear each others thoughts. All he knows is that in one months time, he’ll
be a man and that’s all that really matters to him because when you’re
a man in Prentisstown that means you’re special. He doesn’t know what
that entails but he knows he won’t have to do such mundane things like
gather apples in the swamp at the request of Ben.
That’s what Todd is doing when we first meet him, wandering through
the swamp in search of apples with his dog Manchee. But what he finds
there is something so unsettling that it sets him running back home.
It’s a lack of Noise, a void in all the chatter that surrounds him day
in and day out and even though he can’t find the source of the “quiet”
he rushes back home, knowing something is wrong.
And that’s when things only get worse. Ben and Cillian read his
noise and instantly start insisting that he has to leave, that they
can’t wait any longer. It turns out they were planning on sending him
away anyway, since something happens to the boys that turn into men in
Prentisstown and whatever it is, it’s terrible. Todd reads it from Bens
noise and it makes him even more confused.
Neither Ben nor Cillian will
explain anything to him as they take out a rucksack they had packed away
for him and put his mothers journal in it, which contains a map. Ben
assures Todd that he’ll know what to do when he gets back to the swamp
but they've already run out of time as the town is already on Todd’s trail,
having gleaned his discovery of the “quiet” in the swamp from his Noise. Ben and
Cillian send Todd away and he does as he’s told, since more men from
town are showing up and Todd knows Ben and Cillian won’t be able to hold
them off forever.
He runs until he’s back in the swamp and he runs until he finds the
“quiet” again and he is astonished to learn that the source of the
“quiet” is a girl, about his own age and her name is Viola. Even though
Todd has no idea why, he feels protective of this girl and together they
follow Bens' map, while the men from town trail them. Todd isn’t the
best reader but with the help of Viola he’s able to decipher the first
message on the map and it’s the sinister , foreboding statement that
“you must warn them.”
They come to a bridge and cross it, Viola using something from her
pack to burn the bridge and stop their pursuers. When Todd first met
Viola she brought him to the cracked wreckage of what he manages to
figure out is a spaceship. There are two bodies, a man and a woman and
Todd assumes they’re Violas parents. After gathering her things and managing to escape their pursuers they find themselves face to face with
a rifle and the person holding that rifle is a full grown woman.
Todd
is completely floored, always having been taught that the germs the Spackle released
killed all the women but he was misinformed, apparently about a lot of
things. Like how there are still women and they make no noise and there
are men and they DO make noise and that the settlement that this woman,
Hildy takes them to is called Farbranch and that it’s teeming with men,
women and even children, something Todd has never seen. He was the
youngest person alive in Prentisstown and he is absolutely stunned by
Farbranch, as are some of its inhabitants by his arrival,
infuriated that Hildy would bring filth from Prentisstown to their
doorstep.
Todd is beginning to realize that however he was living in
Prentisstown was very very wrong and the images he gets from the men of
Farbranch’s Noise is enough to terrify him. Images of death and blood
and screaming. And as Hildy takes Todd and Viola to her sister who is
the Deputy Mayor of Farbranch, it turns out that the men from
Prentisstown are still on their trail.
Everything happens at once and Todd’s entire life, his entire
world, everything that he’s known and understood is put to the test. Needless to say, I didn't want to put it down. I had my doubts at first but once this novel got its feet under it, it ran and never let it up. It
was an absolute page turner from start to finish. I didn’t want to put
it down.
I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in YA Dystopian novels/Science Fiction and suspense.
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