The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness - 2 stars

[Joy D]

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness - 2* - My Review

In this second book of the Chaos Walking series, we rejoin the story of Todd and Viola on New Planet. It picks up where the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, ended. The two protagonists have arrived in Haven, only to find it has been renamed "New Prentisstown," and is under the rule of Mayor Prentiss (who is now calling himself "the President"). Todd and Viola are split up and do not know what has happened to the other. They are pulled into opposite sides of the pending war and are led to believe they have betrayed each other.

I very much enjoyed the first book, but the second book did not work as well for me. First, the positives. It does a good job of showing how good people get lured into doing terrible things. Todd gets involved in the Mayor’s corrupt regime and Viola joins the Answer, a resistance group whose methods are often unethical. However…. This is an extremely dark book. The middle section, particularly the treatment of the native inhabitants (the Spackle) and conditions in the work camps, can be almost as difficult to read as a Holocaust narrative. There are many scenes involving torture, which I felt went too far into gratuitous violence. A few of these scenes would have been plenty. The writing is not quite up to par, either.

This book does not seem set in the same world as the first book, or perhaps I just enjoyed learning about New Planet and its environment. Nothing new was added here. The Ask and the Answer could almost have been set anywhere. For a young adult novel, I was surprised at the relentless violence. It ends on a cliffhanger, and I do not feel motivated to read the third and final book.