Blog Tour - A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, Extract 5

A Monster Calls was published on 5 May 2011 by the one and only Walker Books.  If you follow my blog at all, you'll probably know that I have only recently been introduced to Ness's work and that I have now declared my undying love for his ability to make the written word into something so extraordinary.  SO, when i got asked to be a part of the blog tour for his latest release, A Monster Calls, well let's just say I broke out the happy dance.

You can check out the first extract over on the lovely Sya's blog The Mountains of Instead right here, and follow the links to read every exclusive extract.  The next stop on the tour is Undercover Reads, and that will be posted tomorrow, so head on over there for your next fix!!

It is my absolute pleasure to present to you lovely people, the fifth extract from A Monster Calls:-

School

He could already taste the blood in his mouth as he got up. He had bitten the inside of his lip when he hit the ground, and it was what he focussed on now as he stood, the strange metallic flavour that made you want to spit it out immediately, like you’d eaten something that wasn’t food at all.

He swallowed it instead. Harry and his cronies would have been thrilled beyond words if they knew Conor was bleeding. He could hear Anton and Sully laughing behind him, knew exactly the look on Harry’s face, even though he couldn’t see it. He could probably even guess what Harry would say next in that calm, amused voice of his that seemed to mimic every adult you never wanted to meet.

“Be careful of the steps there,” Harry said. “You might fall.”

Yep, that’d be about right.

It hadn’t always been like this.

Harry was the Blond Wonder Child, the teachers’ pet through every year of school. The first pupil with his hand in the air, the fastest player on the football pitch, but for all that, just another kid in Conor’s class. They hadn’t been friends exactly – Harry didn’t really have friends, only followers; Anton and Sully basically just stood behind him and laughed at everything he did – but they hadn’t been enemies, either. Conor would have been mildly surprised if Harry had even known his name.

Somewhere over the past year, though, something had changed. Harry had started noticing Conor, catching his eye, looking at him with a detached amusement. 

This change hadn’t come when everything started with Conor’s mum. No, it had come later, when Conor started having the nightmare, the real nightmare, not the stupid tree, the nightmare with the screaming and the falling, the nightmare he would never tell another living soul about. When Conor started having that nightmare, that’s when Harry noticed him, like a secret mark had been placed on him that only Harry could see. 

A mark that drew Harry to him like iron to a magnet.

On the first day of the new school year, Harry had tripped Conor coming into the school grounds, sending him tumbling to the pavement.

And so it had begun.

And so it had continued.

YAY!! Sounds amazing right? YEAH? so go buy it!!

As always you can follow Patrick Ness on twitter here, visit his website or become a fan on facebook

Review - The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Published by Walker Books
Published 22 October 2008

I am writing this review literally not five minutes after I turned the last page.  I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards.  I can see brown fuzz at the corners of my vision which means my hair resembles that of cartoon people who get electrocuted.  It is very likey that I have snot somewhere on my face because my nose won't stop running.  My hands are black from the mascara that is now probably smeared all over my face.  I look? like a train wreck (heck i'm not looking in the mirror) and you know what? I FEEL like a train wreck.  Because this book was SO EFFIN GOOD it punched me right in the face like some un-relentless monster of words and I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT.  Call me a masochist but whatever.

Okay, so I knew people were bat shit for these books.  I can remember how obssesive people got waiting for the finale of the trilogy to be released. I've seen endless exclamations of love for this author and these characters, but I went into this book knowing not a single thing about it apart from that which is told to us in the synopsis.  SO, it's for that reason i'm declaring this a spoiler free zone, because if you haven't read this I want you to feel the nervous engery, the confusion and the terror and excitement that I did.  BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS CRAZY INSANE.

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown. And in this town there is not one. single. girl.  It's chock fulla men and farms and suck lark.  SOUNDS LIKE BOY HEAVEN RIGHT? wrong! See, this little town is special because it's full of Noise.  And by noise I obviously mean Noise that comes outta people's heads, in streams of thoughts and images.  Which means that everyone can hear everything everyone ever thinks, even the things they would never say out loud, dark horrible things, even their dreams.  Which basically sucks a LOT because there is never any quiet, no silence, no place to get away from all the noise bashing and clashing around your head, because even the ANIMALS talk (yay!!).  So, it's no wonder that boy Todd spends most of his time hanging out where the Spackles used to live before they were wiped out in the war.  But when he's down by the swamp with his dog Manchee (LURVE) who don't shut up about needing a poo (seriously! LURVE) he finds something he never thought he would ever find.  SILENCE.  DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNN.  end scene.

Reasons why I loved this book I would lick it if wasn't on loan from the library:

Patrick Ness writes in this completely off putting style that at first I thought he was crazy.  Todd sounds like a hillbilly what with all this "not when yer asleep, not when yer by yerself, never", that I pictured him in a flannel checkered shirt with a floppy hat on and dungaree's and maybe a piece of straw dangling outta his mouth.  And then this image of him eventually evaporated to be replaced by this boy that I wanted to crush into a giant hug.  And that's all down to his characters development and the skillfull writing style that Ness used to make me see past things that overshadowed my perception of the storyline at the beginning and fully immersed me into this breathtakingly action packed story.

Manchee.  The little dog that can.  I LOVE HIM.  And the fact that you actually get to know him a little because he can TALK through his thoughts was quite possibly a mastermind move.  Ow, Todd? Todd? AHHH I LOVE HIM

Violence.  I sound like a saddist when I say this but OMG VIOLENCE.  don't you just love it when an author holds nothing back and comes at you full force making you see all the gorey gruesome bits that you never expect to make an appearance? because I sure do! Some of the stuff we get to see is like off the charts crazy nasty.  Ness is like a master at making you feel like your going to barf right onto the pages of the book because you JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT.  I live for that horribly sickly feeling where you just need to find out whats happening right now before your heart leaps outta your chest.

Dystopia.  I love me some dystopia.  And this was unlike any I've ever read before.  Random things are thrown into descriptions and it made me feel like everything I had grasped so far was just the tip of the iceberg and that I have so MUCH more to learn from this crazy ass world and the people in it, in upcoming books.

CLIFFHANGER.  Serious, serious cliffhanger.  Like if I didn't already own the next two books in the series you bet I would be going outta the house right now and buying them.  I wouldn't even look in the mirror first and Y'ALL read the description about whats occuring up in my face didn't you? And it actually says at the end...."End of book one" like a taunt.  Like Patrick's own little way of saying I REVEL IN THE PAIN I HAVE CAUSED YOU. 

Depression central.  This sounds whacked out of me, but without seeing these characters at their lowest point, how can we ever appreciate them at their best? Only the best books make me feel like i've just been in a fist fight with a heavyweight boxer.  Which is painful yeah, but oh so exhilarating.

In conclusion, I loved this book as you probably can already tell.  I was dancing on the line of actually posting my whole review in captial letters.  1, because I love them so.  2, because I fell like I can't express my love for this book without shouting it out.  3, because IT WAS REALLY THAT EFFING GOOD.  One of the best YA novels dystopian ficiton has to offer.  It gets it right in that special way only few dystopian books do.  It questions society and humanity, in a way that's subtle but nontheless powerful.  If you had to read one book this year, I hope you'd choose this one.