From David Larsen at the New Zealand Herald

The phrase “page-turner” is much abused in book publicity circles, as is the dubious compound adjective “unputdownable”. But there you go.

Todd Hewitt, our very likeable narrator, has grown up as the youngest boy in Prentisstown, the last surviving human settlement on a planet where a strange virus has infected all the men and boys with involuntary telepathic broadcasting, and killed all the women and girls. Everyone always knows what everyone else is thinking.

Which turns out to mean, as Todd discovers early on in the book, that some thoughts can be kept secret, buried in the general hubbub. The men around him have been lying to him, and to all the other boys.

This is what science fiction can do that realist fiction can’t: create a world in which a teenage boy’s discovery of the existence of girls is a literal one. The core of The Knife of Never Letting Go is Todd’s evolving friendship with Viola, a new arrival on the planet who knows as little as he does about what happens to relationships between the sexes when men can’t keep their thoughts to themselves… and women can. It’s a sweet, strangely believeable maybe-love story.

Read More here

This series looks really good. It moves beyond what could have been very predictable takes it much, much further.

What do you think of the series?