I’m listening to the last of the Chaos Walking series from author Patrick Ness. The series is a trilogy which begins with The Knife of Never Letting Go, continues with The Ask and the Answer, and concludes with the final book, Monsters of Men.

We begin with meeting Todd, the youngest boy of Prentisstown, a settlement on New World where men have “Noise,” which are thoughts, both truth and lies, made real. An uncontrollable curse, that was a “gift” of the new world the settlers found when they landed years ago. In Prentisstown, there are no women. None. Something happened years ago. A War. A war fought between the men on New World and the indigenous people called the Spackle. Like all wars, there is cost. Great cost, and in this war, the cost was women.

Life in Todd’s world isn’t easy, but it’s the only one he’s known. But it’s all turned upside down the day he and his unwanted dog Manchee, find a hole in the noise. And, what’s even stranger than the nature of the hole itself, its “emptiness” is that that hole… is a girl. Women on New World had no Noise.

This series is written so well, with a cast a characters so rich that you have no choice but to embrace them. The books take you on a journey. One of new discoveries, loss and promise, of Love, and Hate and of betrayal, and trust. As I listened though, one thing was made painfully apparent; nothing is in black and white. That every side had even more sides. And that some things, no matter how hard you fight for different, never change.

I’ve not yet finished listening to Monsters of Men, and I have come to the point of any book where it’s near the end, and I’m not ready for that yet. But I know that when that time comes, when the last word has been spoken, that I will take this book with me. Forever.