Oh, friends, this review of The Ask And The Answer is WAY overdue. You see, I read Patrick Ness’s second Chaos Walking book in Summer 2010 and is it is 2012 already, a lot of time has gone by in book years. So, I’ll be very succinct because my memory is fuzzy, but when I read Monsters Of Men I plan on reviewing it and you guys, when I review books from a series I am bizarrely OCD, like I have to review all of them and generally can’t skip a book or review from the middle. That aside, just thinking about Chaos Walking and The Knife Of Never Letting Go makes me feel all ache-y on the inside.
The Ask And The Answer
FROM HERE ON OUT ARE SPOILERS FOR THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO
So, Todd and Viola end up making it to Haven after the journey from hell, seriously with all the trauma they went through it was totes not a fun journey. And in Haven they see Mayor Prentiss is in charge which is totally a WTF moment. So, the journey is all for nothing it seems. THEN sigh, the two split up and Viola happens to get roped into joining a resistance, whereas Todd is a guard of the Spackle because he stays in Haven.
Yo, The Ask And The Answer is HEART BREAK CITY y’all. I swear, these books, this Chaos Walking series are not easy reads because you feel ALL OF THE THINGS on top of the grief from book one. Like, that whole entire book the BIG SAD THING coughMancheecough was hanging over my head while reading. I’m sorry, I’m just really sensitive to dogs.
Although, if you want me to be super honest, well of course you want that, I didn’t FEEL or emote during The Ask And The Answer on the same level that I did for Knife Of Never Letting Go because I’m a dog person and not at all a horse person. Like, I still had emotions and such, and still cared about Todd and Viola but I could not force myself to fall in love with the horse, like I did with Manchee.
Either way, The Ask And The Answer by Patrick Ness was a fabulous second in a trilogy read and one of these days I’ll get to Monsters Of Men and perhaps make enough peace with my grief that I’ll allow myself to listen to the audiobooks for a re-read.
Disclosure: I purchased my copy of this book.
Other Reviews of The Ask And The Answer by Patrick Ness:
Forever Young Adult
Presenting Lenore
Rhapsody In Books
Lisa Is Busy Nerding
YA Bibliophile
Series Order:
The New World (Prequel)
The Knife Of Never Letting Go (Book One)
The Ask And The Answer (Book Two)
Monsters Of Men (Book Three)
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Angharrad has a pretty great moment in Monsters of Men that may make you love her a bit more 🙂
Okay. I will keep an open mind 😉
SO SO MUCH LOVE I CANNOT EVEN COMMENT.
But you know. You know.
Keep reading! You can do it.
I know, I know. AND I TOTALLY WILL DO IT! 😀
I LOVE this series! I can’t say enough great things about it!
A late review is better than no review, I guess 🙂
Amanda
I love this series SO MUCH. One of my all time favourites.
Every time I see someone read this my ‘fangirl’ mode is kicked into overdrive.
Great review, April. Just makes me want to read it all over again! 🙂
My feelings on this book are exactly the same! I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t like it as much but now that you bring up the lack of Manchee I think you’re right. So heartbreaking. Great review!
The Knife of Never Letting Go traumatized me so much that I only just now — over a year later — picked up The Ask and the Answer. I got emotional reading it, too, but I definitely agree that the first book hit the hardest. Still, I’m both ready and unprepared to finish the series soon. I know Patrick Ness still has so more suffering ahead for me, haha.
So…this is really weird, but:
Okay. I am in love with this series. Like, A WHOLE SHIT-TON in love. So I preordered the UK copy of Monsters of Men so that I’d have it in May instead of September for here. And before I also ended up being given an ARC of the US at ALA. And yet I still haven’t read it.
I just. Can’t.
When I read it, then it’s over, and I just CAN’T seem to make myself go there. And I keep saying things like, ‘Well, I want to read the whole series together, so I need to wait until I have time for the other 2’ or ‘I just don’t have time right now to really appreciate it’ or ‘what if I don’t remember everything and I miss something meaningful?’ When really, I just don’t want it to end.
And so it’s just been sitting on my shelves, and I look at it every now and then and feel guilty.
I need help.
Oooh.. I still need to read ANY of his books. >_<
I completely relate to how you felt about Manchee, which is one of the reasons I haven’t read The Ask and the Answer yet. My husband will sometimes flip through my books and pretend to spoil something for me. He did that with this, and accidentally opened to that section, but I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t believe it when it happened. I plan on reading The Ask and the Answer soon though because it’s an awesome trilogy.