Patrick Ness is a cruel, cruel man, but I absolutely love him for it. It's not very often that all of the books in a series are equally amazing, but all three of the Chaos Walking books were unbelievable. I honestly feel empty now that I've finished the trilogy. (Although, that might have something to do with having just shed my body weight in tears.)
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That's it. I'm throwing in the towel. I'm saying DNF at 25%. I know I'm in the vast minority for this book (the whole series, really)
because I'm not head over heels with it. In fact, I'd like to kick it in the head and break its heels. Oof. That came off as ultra violent.
The point is, I was getting extremely frustrated with the book, and at 25%, I decided to read the Wikipedia summary. Even that was enough to cause me to roll my eyes. So yes, I'm done.
The most frustrating thing with this book (and the series in general, I suppose), is the constant Viola/Todd show. They're how old? 16? She's the first female he's ever met, and they're suddenly in love and MAKING TERRIBLE DECISIONS IN A WAR THAT COST HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS OF LIVES AT RISK. Oh my God, I wanted to tear my own hair out. No, I’ve never been in love with someone, so I can’t say how that feels, but I have consumed plenty of other media in which the main character chooses not to make a bad decision because their loved one wouldn’t want it that way, or insert other rational decision. But no, Viola and Todd continuously trust the wrong people, distrust each other, make needlessly risky decisions to “save” each other, and at one point, Viola unleashes a bomb on the town to save Todd. Even though he’s fine and escaping the town anyway. She would kill these creatures (The Spackle is a terrible name, so I’m going to call them by the name they call themselves, The Land) to save one boy. One. Boy. That, to me, is ridiculous. Could you live with yourself if you murdered innocent people to save one person? These characters are so hypocritical; Viola and Todd keep saying how they can never kill and how they want peace, yet they make horrible decisions that just bring about more war. Yeah, you guys are real smart teenagers and I’m so glad TEENAGERS are RUNNING A WAR.
Which brings me to the Spackle. What a thin excuse to use a Native American metaphor. Except on a much smaller scale, like one Native American tribe against a group of settlers, except their form of communication is infectious to the male settlers. It’s pretty easy to see that the Land (what they call themselves) are the good guys because it was their land in the first place, they want peace, but these dumb white colonists keep kicking them off their land and eventually rounding them up, depriving them of communication, and branding them. Except this metaphor doesn’t prove a point. It just fails.
Oh, and the characters. Oh my God, kill me. I hate almost everyone in this book. The Mayor is just batshit crazy and power hungry; there’s no real motivation or character development for him. He’s just mad. You already know why I hate Todd and Viola (and yes, I suppose they’re acting as 16-year-olds would act stereotypically, but I personally don’t want to read about that kind of stuff. I don’t want to read about dumb decisions made in the name of true wuv), and everyone in the town just seems… empty. Like shells.
Mistress Coyle was more interesting because she was a guerilla fighter/healer who was good at manipulation and… well, guerilla warfare. She also seemed to be a more complex character than everyone else. I also thought The Return (or Spackle 1017, as he’s known to the white settlers) was a good character because he had witnessed a genocide, feels like an outsider to his people, is full of anger and revenge, and has good motivation. Though he was spared his life by Todd, he has a great reason to be angry at him and want to kill him because Todd killed and let Davy kill the other Spackle. Sparing your life when you could have spared all the others is not a good enough reason to not want revenge. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that Viola is more important than hundreds of innocent lives. My bad.
So yes, this rant is angry and frustrated and sarcastic. If you loved the book, great. I’m glad you had a great time. But these frustrations are my own and I just wanted to share them in case someone asks about this book. If you want to read a glowing review of this book, look at the top reviews for this book; we’re certainly not short on those.
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