The Choices That We Make: Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness

I had the 10th-anniversary edition copy of the Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness as soon as it was released in 2018, but I left them shelved for years. If you look at the back, you’ll see a quote from the Guardian saying, “I would press the Chaos Walking Trilogy on anyone, anyone at all.” Now that I’ve finally read it, I definitely agree with them a hundred times over.

This trilogy was phenomenal. The three books – The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and The Answer, and Monsters of Men – weave a seamless tapestry of action, science fiction, and social and political commentary. It almost feels impossible to do a book review of it where I don’t give too many details for those who haven’t read it yet, so please bear with me as I try to make this as spoiler scarce as possible.

“The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.”

Chaos Walking has a unique plot that centers on the inhabitants of the New World. Due to the Noise germ, men and animals can hear and broadcast their thoughts to one another. Women are immune to the Noise germ that causes it, enabling them to keep their thoughts private and the men unable to hear them. On the other hand, the native species of New World called the Spackle are well-adapted to it, having learned to communicate with each other wordlessly. But right off the bat in the first book, we realize what people are capable of doing when they can’t understand something, in this case, the Spackle. They fear it so much that they will try to get rid of it. That festering idea caused the first war between people and Spackle of which the latter was utterly defeated. The plot begins years later as new generations are born, truths are concealed, war is just awaiting its cue, and new settlers from Old World are about to arrive.

That’s as much detail I can give away from the main plot. Otherwise, I would have to tell you the summary because every little detail amounts to a bigger picture. The Chaos Walking Trilogy has some of the most well fleshed-out characters – the protagonists being Todd, Viola, and 1017/The Sky – of which I had the fortune to know. We meet the young and watch them mature over such a short time after all the tragedies they faced, the pressure they went through, and the tough decisions they had to make while they’re barely adolescents. Their developments were simultaneously slow and fast but never forced – only necessary.

“We are the choices that we make. We are the choices that we have to make.”

Throughout the three books, we see the lengths that trust could cross. The wars that lies could spark. The power of devotion. The burden that comes with remembering. The dragging weight of guilt and regret. The future that follows forgiveness. The toppling dominoes of fear and not knowing. The importance of accountability. The danger of vanity, warmongering, and delusion. The self-harming effect of yearning for revenge. Emotional fortitude is required by deep empathy. The corrosiveness of a taste of power. The atrocities and sacrifices we commit for the sake of ideals and those we wish to protect. The insatiability of human greed. The hard road towards peace. And the unimaginable strength that accompanies love.

“It’s not how we fall. It’s how we get back up again.”

Believe me when I say that even if this series is filled with talking dogs and charming horses, it is set upon the foundations of really dark and heavy themes. It treads through sexism, racism, slavery, abuse, torture, tyranny, war, and mass murder. Ness allows readers to see through the perspectives of a tyrant, terrorists, the spectators, the actors, and the oppressed. And yes, it’s all a work of fiction, but it strongly emulates real life to the point that it becomes deeply thought-provoking.

Throughout, the story takes many breathtaking twists and heart-stopping turns. It was almost difficult to keep up with the sheer amount of it in the last book, Monsters of Men (even nearly threw my copy a couple of times), but the foreshadowing it all took to get there is worth it, and the pacing makes sense. Ness’s writing can sway our opinions and perceptions of the characters in this series in all directions. The way they could make us feel, hate, love, and deceptively gaslight us is proof of brilliant storytelling. I promise you that the events and messages found in this series, however you interpret it, will resonate with you for a long time.

This series will brand its mark on you.