The Ask and the Answer: 02 (Chaos Walking Trilogy (Paperback))

My 12-year-old daughter devoured The Knife of Never Letting Go and I, therefore, knew I had to buy this one for her so she could carry on reading through the series without stopping!According to her, this second book is fast-paced and carries on perfectly from book one. However, she prefers the fact that this time, this book offers more on Viola and her thoughts, feelings, and perspective.I’ve watched as my daughter has become immersed in this world and for that reason alone, I can’t recommend this series enough.

While I didn't enjoy it as much as The Knife of Never Letting Go, I found that this novel was powerful, deeply moving and (at times) utterly heartbreaking. Although the novel is fairly easy to read, it explores some very complex ethical themes and does so without spoon-feeding answers to the reader, leading them to make up their own minds.By putting Todd and Viola on opposite sides of a civil war, Ness allows the reader to see both sides of the conflict and understand that there are no good guys and bad guys. While Mayor Prentiss is undeniably evil, the casual disregard of human life held by the Answer is also horrific, leading the reader to wonder if they are really what is best for Haven.However, I didn't feel that the novel was structured as efficiently as its prequel. The Knife of Never Letting Go was always moving - a continuous journey as Todd and Viola travelled together and gradually pieced together the mystery of what happened to the Prentisstown women. While never boring, less happened in this story. It was more about the gradual building of tension that lead to the spark of Civil War. I also didn't think that the flips in narrative were very effective as they often repeated the same events from two different perspectives. The narrative voices also weren't different enough as Todd and Viola's voices were very similar, sometimes leaving me confused as to who was speaking.Yet, the characterisation in the novel was still very strong. Todd's actions in the novel were often morally dubious and very difficult to justify, yet I could understand why he did the horrible things he did (even though I didn't agree with them). Viola is, however, by far my favourite character as she Throughout the story, she is strong, resilient and determined. I love how she remains so staunchly loyal to Todd through the story, doing everything in her power to guarantee his safety at all times and always able to stand up to authority figures – even ones as power as the Mayor – when she knows that they’re wrong.So, all in all, this is another strong entry to the series. I can't wait to see how it concludes in Monsters of Men.

Let me tell you about how I had my life ruined by aliens. The Knife of Never Letting Go was a great book. I loved it, and I've been recommending it like crazy. But The Ask and the Answer completely blows its predecessor out of the water. So much happens in such a (relatively) short book, it's a wonder people's heads don't explode while they're reading it. I loved it, and before writing this review I was going to just give it a 4 stars/Essential rating, but now I've decided to go with All Time Favourite. Because my life is ruined and I am crying.So yes, the aliens. The Spackle absolutely broke my heart. I hate Tatum for not warning me, because she knows how I feel about these things (Spartacus has broken me). The Spackle have been oppressed since the war ended, first by the citizens of Haven who treated them as little more than slaves, and then under the rule of Mayor Prentiss, who went the whole hog and started tagging them like cattle and making them poo in a hole in the ground. These intelligent life forms were completely degraded, and it totally broke my heart. Not gonna lie, I'm crying while I write this. Their parts in The Ask and the Answer are the most prominent to me, and it's absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. Team Spackle FTW, everyone else can leave.""We can fight," Davy says. "We proved that. And instead you got us babysitting animals that are already beat."The Mayor considers us for a moment, tho I don't know how or when Davy turned him and me into an us. "If you think they're already beaten, David," he finally says, "then you know very little about the Spackle.""Todd drove me a little crazy in this book. I love him, I really do, but his decisions in The Ask and the Answer broke me. When his hope is taken away, he completely shuts off and forgets about fighting back. He becomes a drone for Mayor Prentiss, and it's awful to see. He does some sickening things, that would have made me hate him if I hadn't already read about him in The Knife of Never Letting Go. I'm looking forward to seeing more development from him in Monsters of Men (if I live through that book, which I doubt I will), because I have a feeling that he's going to rise up and become a great leader.Viola, on the other hand, was pretty much flawless the entire way through. We get to see things from her point of view in this book, since she and Todd are separated for most of it. I spent most of the book fangirling over her, because she is so forking strong and she faced so much, but she didn't give up. She also held onto her beliefs, and didn't let anyone or anything change that. Here, have some quotes.""You haven't even seen me fight yet," I say, standing my ground. "I knocked down a bridge to stop an army. I put a knife through the neck of a crazy murderer. I saved the lives of others while you just ran around at night blowing them up.""As for the romance between Viola and Todd... Well, I can't say that I love it. It totally makes sense that they are clinging to each other and all that, but their relationship is just unhealthy. And also quite cheesy, but let's focus on the unhealthy part. They made some awful decisions because of one another, and I was sitting there wanting to shake them because it was so frustrating. But in a great way, because it provoked emotion from me. I mean, I get that they're very young, and they have no one else on this bloody planet, but STILL. I want them to just end up being best friends, if they both survive to the end of the series, because I think a strong platonic relationship usually works better. For me, anyway.""Everyone here is someone's daughter," she says quietly. "Every soldier out there is someone's son. The only crime, the only crime is to take a life. There is nothing else.""And that's why you don't fight," I say.She turns to me sharply. "To live is to fight," she snaps. "To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.""""I won't tell you anything.""But she betrayed you." The Mayor comes round the front again. "She tried to kill you."And at that, Viola lifts her head.She looks him right in the eye.And says, "No, she tried to kill you."""He smiles. "You may have no choice.""There's always a choice," Viola says by my side."There are themes of anti-feminism and terrorism prevalent throughout this book, and Patrick Ness handles it all so well. He's so bleeding talented. Of course, the bits that stuck out to me the most were the slavery, oppression, and genocide, but Ness packs so much into this book that it's bursting at the seams.The ending completely destroyed me. WHAAAAT?!?!? I was hoping that something like that would happen, but I didn't think it actually would. As soon as I got to THE PART, I wanted to scream and cry and jump around my bedroom.I cannot wait to read Monsters of Men, and I'm going to try desperately hard to read it this month. I don't know if it's going to happen, because I have so many review copies to read, but if not that I WILL be reading it in December. I adore this series, and I am almost ready to have my life ruined some more by Patrick Ness.

Book Two of the Chaos Walking Trilogy. - Possible Spoilers for Book One.Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss.Immediately separated from Viola and imprisoned, Todd is forced to learn the ways of the Mayor's new order.But what secrets are hiding just outside of town?And where is Viola? Is she even still alive?And who are the mysterious Answer?So I finally found the time to dive into book two of this trilogy (Book one being The Knife of Never Letting Go) and as always with YA trilogies I was intrigued to see how the author "managed" the middle part of a story - its a fine line, between keeping up the standard of the first, making it fit well with both part one and what is intended for the finale, plus drawing the reader further into the world created and (hopefully) leaving them all agog to find out how it all pans out...Well, agog doesnt quite describe how I'm feeling right now having just finished this, but one thing is for sure - I am thanking my lucky stars that "Monsters of Men" the final part of this terrific tale is currently looking right at me - no waiting! I can't imagine how annoyed I would be in this moment had I read this when it was first released - why? Because its godamn brilliant thats why!Patrick Ness has pretty much thrown the rule book out of the window with the world he has created here - and the characters who inhabit it - a fascinating, heady mix of glorious madness and mayhem and from an adult point of view, almost a morality tale. Intriguing.After their desperate race against time and an army,despite their best efforts Viola and Todd have inadvertantly ended up caught in the clutches of Mayor Prentiss after all - with Viola severely injured, their choices seem limited. So ended "The Knife of Never Letting Go" and when "The Ask and the Answer" begins we pick up right where we left off.Separated and threatened, it seems as if our two heroes will end up on different sides - and here is where things get extremely complex for the pair of them...caught between two enigmatic and persuasive power hungry people, just which side is the "right" side? As they each make choices they may come to regret, the story pulls you along at a frantic pace, yet still manages to give you an emotional blast. War is coming it seems - and can war ever be the answer, no matter what the question?My favourite part of this novel was the developing relationship, not between Viola and Todd, but between Todd and Davy - son of the Mayor. Constantly at each others throats, enemies thrown together not by choice but by circumstance, they bicker, they fight, neither one is likely to give any ground and they are poles apart. YET one scene involving these two was the scene that had me in tears - sobbing like a baby. Wonderful characterisation - definitely some of the best in the YA world perhaps even in the world of books as a whole.By the end of this I was desperate DESPERATE to know what the outcome will be for all of these people - because to me they are now people. And of course the animals - oh Angharrad you stole my heart.Read it. Live it. Love it.Happy Reading Folks!

Having completely devoured The Knife of Never Letting Go I couldn't wait to get stuck into this.Middle books are always tricky. There is usually some clunky resolution to be done from the first's cliff-hanger and then a lot of set-up for the final book's climax so there's not much room for anything else. But The Ask is still a pretty strong example. Picking up from a cliffhanger that seemed utterly insurmountable by Todd and Viola, you are thrown into a world far darker and far more brutal than you encountered in the first.Again, there are BIG themes: sexism, racism, nature v. nurture, to name but a few. But they are so easily woven into entirely credible storylines that, again, as in The Knife, you hardly notice you're exploring them until you find yourself thinking things through later.This is the book where Todd and Viola grow up, but not necessarily into who they thought they would be. The challenges are harder, the truth more unpalatable and their journeys lead them in opposite directions. And while it's not as gripping or fast-moving as The Knife, the slower pace suits the changing mood, setting up perfectly for the final installment.It is lacking the warmth and humour of the first - I always felt like the loss of one of the key characters in the first was to the detriment of the lighter side to what becomes an increasingly depressing world - but the sense of desperation and horror is appropriate for the direction the story is going.Fairly relentless, not particularly cheery and sometimes really quite brutal in tone, The Ask and The Answer is still a brilliant read and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to dystopian lovers everywhere.