Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

The Chaos Walking trilogy, of which Monsters of Men is the third book, is the best contemporary young adult series I've ever read.


Ever.


By contemporary YA, I mean anything published in the last 50-odd years, because I still have some loyalty to dear old Aslan and his crew. However, of all the YA I've read published in the last 54 years, the Chaos Walking trilogy is, far and away, the best of the lot.


Better than Harry Potter? Yes.
Better than The Dark Materials? Yes.
Better than the Twilight series? God, yes!
Better than Hunger Games? Yes. Yes. Yes. (And I say this as one who really loves The Hunger Games.)


And, Gaiman, I love you, but this beats your YA books, too.


What makes this series so great? Three simple things: Relevant themes, fantastic storytelling, and outstanding writing.


Monsters of Men is the last book in Chaos Walking. The first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, made it to last year's list of my 10 best reads. The second book, The Ask and the Answer would have made it, too, had I not limited the list to one entry per author. But I have honestly never read such a gripping yet profound piece of young adult dystopian literature.


In the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, the reader is introduced to Todd, who lives in Prentisstown, a sort of frontier town located in some unnamed planet. There are a couple of odd things in Prentisstown: a) there are no women; b) all the men can hear each other's thoughts. Eventually, one discovers that the women were killed by the same virus that gave the men ability to hear each other's Noise (their term for one's thoughts). Todd is the youngest male in Prentisstown, and in a month--on his 13th year--he is to become a man, according to Prentisstown custom. And this is what this book so wonderfully delves into--how a boy becomes a man. Because, of course, things in Prentisstown aren't as simple as they appear. Especially when Todd discovers an area of "silence"--a blank space where he cannot hear any Noise. This silent space is nothing other than a young girl named Viola.


In The Ask and the Answer, Todd and Viola fall into the hands of their enemy, the Mayor of Prentisstown. And it is here that Ness extends the narrative from something centering on people to something involving society, power, war, and genocide. Sounds heavy? Yes, but masterfully done. In no way does Ness compromise the narrative in favor of indulging in profundity. The book is both gripping and eerily relevant.


Finally, in Monsters of Men, Todd and Viola are in the middle of a war--a war where there aren't just two sides, making for a richer story. There is the army of the despot Mayor of Prentisstown, the group of revolutionary Mistress Coyle, and the Spackle--the natives of the planet, a certain portion of which were enslaved by the earlier settlers. Add to that the arrival of two of Viola's people--scouts who are preparing the way for the other human settlers coming to the planet. And the scouts' arrival complicate matters for the other groups because of the scouts' superior firepower yet pacifist leanings. And in the center? Todd and Viola, and, interestingly, a Spackle called The Return.


You know what I absolutely loved about Monsters of Men? It's that it's difficult to make a simple summary. Because it's not simple. The language may be simple and beautiful, but the story and the characters--Mr. Ness does not make it simple for them which makes it not simple for us. In the book, there were never easy answers, not for the characters and not for the reader.


Take Todd. You root for him. You realize he has a strong moral code. But within the series, he does things that break your heart. He fails. Does that make you not care about him? Actually, it makes you care about him even more, because he's human and he tries. And he hopes. In his position, you wouldn't know whether you'd do the same thing; but you understand why he did.


Todd starts out in innocence, learns more about the world lives in and the people he lives with, gets thrown into extremely difficult situations, becomes fallible not just once--and yet, and yet. He struggles for his own redemption and the redemption of others you wouldn't even bother redeeming. And you know why I think Patrick Ness is a terrific writer? Because it works. This breaking of characters from their mold has no hurried or contrived feel about it. It makes sense and it feels real.


And while I'm at it, let me emphasize Ness's skill as a writer. I mean, just take a look at the titles. Aren't they beautiful? The title The Knife of Never Letting Go is sheer poetry. Chaos Walking itself is from a fantastic line in the first book. "Without a filter [for Noise], a man is just chaos walking." And in the third book, part of the story is told from the point of view of a Spackle, a race with no verbal language, but who communicate via their thoughts, in images and feelings. How does an author translate that to the page? Ness does it by making their use of language a bit strange, though lyrical and logical. And again, it works. So that when the Spackle speak, they don't "say," they "show." So that when they talk about The Return or The Sky, you realize that they're talking about specific individuals. So that when The Return talks about his "one in particular," you know that he is referring to his one in particular.


There are so many things I'd like to say about this series, especially this book, Monsters of Men--the way it deals with the question of war, the representation of the different agenda present in those who lead the war and those who seek peace, the human element in an armed struggle, the question of who bears redemption, the reference to the effects of a constant flow of information, the subtle but natural treatment of homosexuality, and the beauty of Ness's creations--Todd, Viola, The Return, The Spackle, and the Mayor. Except, if I did talk about all these, this would be a longer post than it already is.


And I honestly don't want to take up too much of your time reading this post. I want you to spend your time trying out this series. Because whatever I say here pales in comparison to experiencing the actual story.


Moreover, at this point of history, when the young adult genre is experiencing a boom, when bookstores have strategically placed tables featuring popular young adult titles, when everybody talks about the same young adult series and contests and events are launched for it, I'm wondering where and when they're going to promote this series.


Yes, I'm talking to you, Fully Booked, Powerbooks, and National Bookstore (the major bookstores in my country.) I understand that other YA series and books have greater marketing and better sales. But there is a relationship between what is marketed or advertised and what people buy and read. The Chaos Walking series deserves at least a spot in one of those tables, a feature in one of your ezines, or a recommendation from one of your staff. I dare anyone who's read it to say it's not a well-written, relevant, beautiful, and accessible-to-its-market story.


Promote it, please. It should be out there. Because readers deserve a good story and a good story, this story, deserves to be read.