The 'Chaos Walking' series is, in my teen opinion, a must read for all those over 13. All of the books are fantastic and page-turning, and I had many nights where I had to grumpily put it down at 3AM, much to my annoyance, because I couldn't stop reading! This one, 'The ask and the Answer', is a great one as well. A bit more action than the one before, but an equal amount of stunning twists, all of the trip are as good as each other. So, if you enjoyed the first one, 'The Knife of Never Letting Go', then you simply must keep reading the series, not just to frantically unravel the cliffhanger at the end of it! 5 stars: a true success by Patrick Ness.

With such a jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, gut-wrenching cliff hanger to the end of the incredible first instalment, The Ask and the Answer had much to live up to... and it didn't fail to surpass that. Still holding on to that sense of realism that shone throughout The Knife of Never Letting Go, we see Todd and Viola immediately after the climax. Throughout this book, we are treated to the thoughts of Viola where only before we had Todd's. This addition gives us a far better hindsight to the characters, their feelings and the emotions they both go through when forced to make the tough decisions abundant through the trilogy so far. The Ask and the Answer gives us the same amount of emotional, tension and action we have come to expect from Patrick Ness. This volume just left me aching to read the third!

The Ask and The Answer in one Tweet-sized chunk: A penetrating and perceptive, edge-of-the-seat intrigue with a host of engaging characters. “Not everything is black and white, Todd. In fact, almost nothing is.” The Knife of Never Letting Go ended on a cliff-hanger. Having spent the entire book fleeing for their lives across New World, with a marauding army laying waste to towns and villages behind them, a psychopathic preacher trying to kill them, and with Viola wounded and near death, Todd stumbled into Haven only to find they were too late. “We were in the square, in the square where I’d run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive. Stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her- But there weren’t no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men-” For unbeknownst to them Mayor Prentiss has arrived first. The city has surrendered without a shot being fired. Now he is President, and Haven has been renamed New Prentisstown. The Haven they dreamed of throughout the first book is now just a bigger, harsher version of the town Todd left. It is a beginning befitting of a book in which an insidious air of fear and impending doom replaces the relentless hope the characterised The Knife of Never Letting Go. New Prentisstown has its surprises, most notably a Noise suppressant which allows men and women to live in harmony together. But that is the first thing to go. By confiscating it, the Mayor sends the entire population into a frantic cold turkey come down which becomes another tool in his authoritarian control. In the gender apartheid that follows, the Mayor seeks to recreate society as he wishes it. “The borders between men and women had become blurred, and the reintroduction of those borders is a slow and painful process. The formation of mutual trust takes time, but the important thing to remember is, as I’ve said, the war is over.” Yet the interesting thing about this segregation is that it does not appear to be based on a belief in the weakness of women, but rather their strength. Mayor Prentiss’s hatred of women is not a sexualised or violent misogyny, but rather a cold and aloof one born, one suspects, of fear and hurt. But that is long in the past. Amongst the ensuing cacophony, his control of Noise sets him apart as a man to be feared, a man not to be trusted, a man able to keep secrets in a world where other men’s thoughts are as transparent as if they were speaking them aloud. Another great departure from the first book comes as Todd and Viola are separated and the narrative splits between them. At first they don’t seem to do too badly. Each is kept alive in bearable conditions, Viola for what she knows, and Todd for something unspecific, some unrealised potential the Mayor sees in him. Viola is locked up in a House of Healing, a sort of hospital run exclusively by and for women, under the direction of Mistress Coyle, while Todd is partnered with Davey Prentiss and set to oversee the management of Spackle (the native alien species on the planet) prisoners who have been quarantined on the edge of town. There he is forced to do the Mayor’s bidding, ‘processing’ the Spackle, managing them, dampening their spirits. The Mayor’s Noise reverberates inside his head; he cannot escape the omnipresent cajoling. The chapters alternate between Todd’s punchy voice and the crisper, more orthodox narration of Viola. Yet the effect of this is to spread the focus of the plot away from them. They are no longer in control of their destinies, the crux of the story moves to those who control them. In Viola’s case this is Mistress Coyle, for Todd it is Mayor Prentiss. Each, but particularly Todd, is driven to rationalising the actions they are compelled to take. Todd tries to convince himself that it is better that he be the one doing these things, someone who cares for the Spackle wellbeing, rather than the Mayors infinitely crueller henchmen. What else can he do? Then the attacks start. At first they are just raids on shops but are soon followed by explosions. What at first appeared to be a peaceful passing of power turns out to have inspired the reformation of The Ask, a guerrilla band of women led by Mistress Coyle and originally formed during the Spackle Wars. Soon, and without much choice on their part, Todd and Viola find themselves on opposite sides of a war being fought between competing ideologies and systems of control. As they each seek to justify and explain their actions, their once unbreakable bond begins to waver, as rumour and separation give way to doubt and suspicion. Who is right when both sides are wrong? The Ask and The Answer is a book of questions. We are the choices we make, that is its message. How we respond to these questions defines who we are, and how we feel about the choices made defines our place in the world. There are no right or wrong choices, Ness seems to be saying, no black and white just a whole lot of grey uncertainty. It is a pretty bleak book. As Todd and Viola stumble between difficult choices with harsh consequences the reader becomes almost personally culpable, through association and loyalty, for the mess that follows. It would all be so much easier if the Mayor were a one dimensional evil presence. But he is more complicated than that. He makes generous gestures, offers reasonable arguments and rational explanations. He can be warm and friendly when it is in his interests to be so. But he keeps his motives to himself, and it is these motives that seem to harbour all his malicious intentions. He says he has The Answer, but in trying to impose it just poses more questions. Similarly, Mistress Coyle is far from a heroic freedom fighter and The Ask, while posing many questions, seem to have relatively few worthwhile answers. When the veneer of political opposition is stripped away they can be seen as little more than a destructive force bent on retribution and settling old scores. In fact, it would be perfectly possible to argue that in their righteous single-minded crusade, the guerrillas incidentally become at least as accountable as the Mayor. If not more. If war is destructive, then aren’t those who actively pursue it not the most guilty of all? And the problem with seeming omnipotence is that there is always someone who will come along and challenge it. Increasingly powerless, Todd grows ever more furious. And that fury is something not even the Mayor can control. The Ask and The Answer is a superb sequel. Along with The Knife of Never Letting Go it was the best book I read in 2009. Although less breathlessly exciting than its predecessor, it is a more penetrating book, one whose ideas ruminate long after the adventure is concluded. It is perceptive, edge-of-the-seat enthralling, and populated with superbly powerful characters. Just as The Knife of Never Letting Go commentated on contemporary themes such as knife crime and gender stereotyping, The Ask and The Answer tackles debates around governmental control, legal opposition, and the War on Terror. It is a book with significance far broader than its own plot. Yet it is noticeably the middle book in a trilogy. Sandwiched between the freshness of the first book and culmination I anticipate in the third, it can feel a little passive. Things are building, forces are amassing, situations are reaching boiling point. Yet this is all presented in tiny incremental shifts. There are neither great denouements, nor clear ends in sight. What is started here will find no resolution until Monsters of Men is published in May 2010. Patrick Ness is an awesomely talented writer, controlling information to shape the responses of his readers and drawing them into emotional and intellectual engagement with the events taking place. I am utterly hooked. When it is released, there will be a fight in our house as to who gets to read Monsters of Men first. It was 240 days and counting when I reviewed The Knife of Never Letting Go; now it is 124. And still I’m counting. Perhaps it is best to finish as The Ask and The Answer begins, with its Friedrich Nietzsche epigraph: “Battle not with monsters lest you become a monster and if you gaze in the abyss the abyss gazes into you.”

Set in an alternate future and following on from the harrowing events of The Knife of Never Letting Go, this is an epic tragedy that challenges difficult topics without getting in the way of heart-stopping storytelling.

I really love this book. Chaos Walking is an amazing trilogy that stretches 'yer' mind even 'tho' it is written in 1st person. I would recommend for anyone who feels bored with Alex Rider and needs some different material to inspire them. 10/10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!