The Knife of Never Letting Go- Reading Response

          In the book "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness, it is about how settlers in the New World were attacked by aliens. They fought a war, and the aliens released a virus that made all the men think out loud. You could hear every single thought they said without them speaking. It soon became chaos and all of the women died. (Apparently because of the disease.) The main character Todd, is almost a man. In Prentisstown, where he lives, Todd is the last boy to become a man. However, his "parents" Cilian and Ben make him run away from Prentisstown 30 days before he becomes a man. Todd goes with his dog Manchee, (which he can hear his thoughts too) and runs away with pack of food, a map, and his deceased mother's book/diary.

            I am up to the middle of the book. Todd is traveling when he finds a girl. Todd has never seen a girl before and she hasn't talked. The more strange thing to Todd is, that he cannot hear her thoughts. Todd believes that the contagious disease that created Noise (which were all the men's thoughts) killed off every last woman. When he sees this girl, he is scared that she will soon perish. After a while, Viola talks and tells Todd her name. As I am reading the book, I can relate to Todd and all the people in Prentisstown.
     
        I think it is good that in real life, we have secrets, and everybody can't hear everything you think. If that happened, I feel like the world could go into chaos, instead of the world becoming a better place. Everyone is going to have some secrets of their own, or something that they don't want revealed. The way that the men of Prentisstown acted, I understand it. I would go crazy too. If I all I heard was Noise from other people's thoughts all day, and never quieting down, I would start acting strangely. Like those men in the book, I wouldn't be able to trust anyone, never live happy. Humans are born to love and repopulate. That is how evolution created us. To have one gender totally wiped out is horrific. Basically, the human population will become extinct after all the men die. This feeling of being ripped of your natural habitat is scary, and I hope no aliens ever come down to earth and do this to us.
         
           This is one of the more challenging books I have read in my lifetime, because in the beginning it was sort of hard to understand. They speak in a slang English, like western. But after the problems started stirring up, I could feel myself getting excited and scared for the character. I love "The Knife of Never Letting Go"!