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"The leaders of men
Born out of your frustration
The leaders of men
Just a strange infatuation
The leaders of men
Made a promise for a new life
No savior for our sakes
To twist the internees of hate
Self-induced manipulation
To crush all thoughts of mass salvation"
- 'Leaders of Men' by Joy Division

Patrick Ness?

Patrick Ness says: "Even in a society where we're constantly being told to 'be be ourselves', the pressure is to conform is terrible, especially for the young. If the Chaos Walking trilogy is about anything, it's about identity, finding out who you are. How do you stay an individual when the pressure to conform, to change who you are, is actually life-threatening?" Patrick Ness.

Underdog, black sheep, black swan, dark horse in the running. Under dogs you run and run. Where do you get that image, that puzzle with all its gray and black and white pieces, from? How do you think when the wrong answers are so loud that you can't hear yourself ask the question? Can you stop rooting for yourself, stop running long enough, to see past the mass of white, white sheep?

What if you will not think for yourself? Can you believe that others will? And if you can't? Will you ever have the right context to understand what is in another's head (not to mention heart. Which isn't enough. Mentioned).

Mariel? I'd say that the trilogy is about thinking for yourself, and about its conceit. For good and for ultimate weakness. It could have been something truly special, and sometimes was. If I had reviewed the first two books before reading Monsters of Men it would have been a different feeling. Now, I don't know if what I had loved was real because of where it went. I feel like I was tricked into voting for a politician who was secretly putting into place laws that violated all I held most dear. Did I believe in a struggle for understanding where it was taken for granted? 'Monsters' said that you should not try to put yourself in another's place but put them in their place. Was it conceit for the maybe teen readership? [As in the kids know best because they are kids.] I don't want to say if it was how they took that. (I cannot be a person who would know what someone else is reading for. What are good intentions and how can I know what those are? Teens can think for themselves the same as me. That this is ya is a nonissue for me.) Todd and Viola are told over and over again (way, way, way too often in Monsters of Men) that they are leaders of men. Wait... But how can you be a leader when you do not trust others to think for themselves? How can you care about, let alone understand, anyone else when you are waiting for someone else to think for you? What if the point of understanding is empathy all along (it is! it is!)? That thing about trusting that there is a mind inside another person with the will and the right to think for themselves. How did it go from what happens when you don't try to listen to a book about having someone else decide for you? Maybe it was that all along.

I have to disagree with other reviews that book two The Ask and the Answer was about Todd and Viola trusting each other. I read it like they refused to think for themselves because they were waiting for the other one to do it for them. Not trusting themselves, if anything. Not wanting to be alone more than that. This would have been brilliant if it were not for the conceit of the final book. Todd tortures women and the aliens, the spackle, in the name of doing what he is told. He deadens himself to waiting for Viola. Viola and Todd who on the surface know that what they are doing is wrong (if someone else's fault, of course) and do it anyway because the other one is supposed to come and tell them what to do. Are the adults who say they have the answer lying? Well, they didn't have the right question 'cause they only cared about the answer (what would Viola think? What would Todd think?). That would have been just great if Monsters of Men hadn't come next and told me so often that they were what was worth saving. To easy to let themselves off the hook, what with setting themselves up as their ideals. Survival is not forever so how can it be all that matters? It is not enough to have your characters tell the reader (repeatedly and transparently) that the ideal is forgiveness. There has to be something past survival.

Do you trust others to think for themselves?

There are a lot of lies in this series.
1. Todd Hewitt is the boy who cannot kill.
2. Todd Hewitt thinks for himself.
3. Todd Hewitt is a leader of men.

And,
4. That people need a leader.
5. That people will not think for themselves.
Patrick Ness ruined his great series in my heart. Screw thinking about motivations. It just feels wrong. I want to quote Joel's review and say fuck this book.

At the best it was something... I felt that there was something in the mind that could not be touched. If you think you know what someone else is thinking... Like if you read one of those psychology checklists of what behavior means, the same old variety of meaning of and behind what anyone could be doing. And it's depressing because it robs of choice. Like if all of that didn't matter because it still couldn't predict what someone was capable of. There's no number six on the list. There's always the chance of something else, for something more. There's something at stake. Surprise and just maybe there's something in someone else is that is all their own. Something in the mind that can still be reached because there's a part of you that is just your own. At the best of this series there is that chance. In The Knife of Never Letting Go Todd understands Viola without having to hear her thoughts. He understands because he doesn't have to know what she is thinking. He just has to care that there is a Viola inside Viola that has that mind space to run and run in. In Monsters of Men Viola cannot trust Todd unless she can hear his thoughts. He could have felt it out for himself, what was true to himself for how he wanted to communicate with others. That SHOULD have been the point. Patrick Ness? Were you listening? Todd? What do you think about this? Did you really not know that the part that is just your own is just as important as any togetherness of the Land and the Sky that the aliens learned to turn their thoughts into one noise that speaks for all (oh wait, they don't count. Todd killed spackle but if he can't kill then that means they don't count). Speak for me if you know that I can also speak for me. Are you alive in the first place if you do not learn from your mistakes? (Ness could have said, "Hey, got drunk and beat your wife? Come in to church and ask God for forgiveness. And then do it again until next Sunday.") Robbed. of. all. meaning.

Todd and Viola only care about each other. It was a wonderfully twisted codependent relationship in 'Answer'. (Theirs is not a romance, sorry.) My favorite part was when they are happy when they believe they are going to be on the run again, like in 'Knife'. They don't realize that their happiness in 'Knife' came from the hope they had that they were running somewhere safe (not the Haven that handed themselves over to a rumor of an army). There had to be somewhere to go! Their "I only care about us" mentality was giving up and they don't even know it. So how the hell are these two leaders of men? Because Todd gave up just as much as Haven did. He did! He did! He did! I don't care how many times it is written in those books that Todd thinks for himself because he doesn't. (He might have if 1017 had thanked him for saving him. The book was great to me when I thought that Ness knew that Todd needed to be told. The kid actually expected to be thanked for not killing a slave!) They ran because they didn't want to know the outcome. You don't have to live if you are always running.

It isn't about how much thinking you do! It's about the right to do so! Yeah, it may be about getting up again when you fall. But what about the ground you fall on? Those you take down with you? What about meeting other people's eyes? Arrrrgh. You might as well pick up and move to a planet all by yourself. The other people would be better off without you.

I gotta wonder if Ness didn't lose sight of New World altogether in maybe some messages about the current world. Mental death in information overload, war and just following orders and giving up. If it hadn't been for the conceit that Todd and Viola had the answer (because boy, they really fucking didn't). 'Cause, you know, recognizing that it happens doesn't mean you know the future. It's still just an educated guess. History will teach us nothing.

So they killed the women in Prentisstown because the men couldn't handle that the women's thoughts could not be heard. In some parts of New World the women were separated as breeding machines.They were seen as apart. So in Monsters of Men is stated somewhere towards the end that women turned off their noise out of an inner desire to be silent and it could be learned to be turned back on. That men had noise because of something in them. Um, what the fuck? Nooooooooooooo. This is not right. Another chance to investigate cultural faith in another's right to think tossed in the bargain bins. Nothing matters as long as the two lead characters are special and everything is about them? It's not like they live on a planet with other people than themselves? I know that sexism exists. I know that there is an age old men are from Mars mentality. It never told me that I knew how men or man think. It should be not be collective. Not that it mattered in the end. Because only two people count on that planet... Isn't that the mentality to be fought against? That one matters more than the other?


So what is the answer and what is the question? What makes Monsters of men? I think it is the answer without question. I would have believed in monsters and leaders if it had not been so egocentric. Do you become what you are because that's what someone told you you are? Isn't telling us who your characters are without making them earn it, isn't that being what others tell them they are? Like, isn't that the same as telling the readers your book is about being true to yourself? Like a big cheat you did not earn? Patrick Ness?

Do you know that feeling off of someone who seems to be talking without thinking first? Philosophy without thought where the first two books felt like something was behind it that couldn't bear to be thought about. You know, approaching a question...

If I wasn't told repeatedly that Todd had that mental strength. He didn't! No way! Not even close! (Oh yeah, the spackle don't count. Because they are different! So branding and killing them doesn't matter.) Let me sense it if it is there. The mayor thinks for Todd. Viola thinks for Todd. Ben thinks for Todd. Todd is mind controlled by the Mayor until Ben returns to think for him instead! Yes! THIS is a book about being yourself? How?!!!! 'Cause that's actually its opposite. What would have happened if he hadn't had Ben? It's not like he ever TRUSTED the Mayor, or cared about what happened to him. He seemed to only want the choice made for him. Yes, this is a kid who trusts someone he doesn't trust. If he didn't trust the Mayor why do we need him to tell us who Todd is? So who was this for? He's special because he's the main character?! Sad sighs. I loved Knife and really liked Answer. Maybe I didn't like those books that much, though, if this is where it ended. Too much talk. I am the circle and the circle is me. Barfs.

Todd? But he won't answer, will he? This series would have been sooooo good if it hadn't been for that bloody conceit. Maybe it is a comfort to outsider teens to be the only person in the crowd that makes no sense to them to be capable of making sense. Like that's the point. There was a lot more possible in this story than that. It's incredibly frustrating to me that this is where Ness chose to take the story. They are heroes because they are my main characters. The fuck? What about not setting up Todd and Viola as everyoen's answer? If I were on New World I would not pick Todd or Viola. I'd move far, far away from them.

What about Viola's ability to imitate those who she is with? (Don't get me started on her training to be a settler. Don't try to, you know, put that in practice, Ness. Because that didn't even matter! Sheesh! Did Todd know how to, for that matter? He knew how to follow orders.) Todd had his doubts about her until he missed that hope of being on the run. It was great when I thought that was why... But was it? Coughs cop out coughs. Why did it start out a book about not being the asshole that thinks you know everything about someone because you think you know all their thoughts into a book about I can't trust you unless I'm telling you what to think?

The buzz isn't the good in Todd that the Mayor cannot have. It's the desire to have something to care about from a man who didn't believe anyone else could think. Todd's was wanting a parent. Couldn't he have cut all of that "You're so special" crap? Please? Patrick Ness? Does anyone else have to be more special than anyone else by rights? Choices, really?

(Why am I writing a long ass review? Monsters of Men is Todd is special, Todd can think, Todd! Todd! Todd! The first two books are Todd?) I'm repeating myself a lot. I think in circles... I think in squares (boxed in). I'm frustrated. Did these books suck all along?

Luckily Viola doesn't have to live 'cause she just has to wait to see if Todd lives or dies. And remember. Not, you know, not kill 1017 'cause he's a person same as her. It's all for Todd. Barfs.

"Lose some sleep and say that you tried." - 'Auto-suggestion' by Joy Division. Exactly. That's Todd in 'Answer' in a nutshell. I can't believe this book.


P.s. I don't believe that Cillian and Ben were the only homosexual couple in Prentisstown. I don't believe that Todd didn't at least overhear wishes to bugger his ass. Ness wasn't afraid of torture scenes so why not this? He definitely wasn't afraid of homosexuality. He wasn't afraid of rape. What gives? (The only thing he seemed to be afraid of was living up to the oft said statement that people can pick themselves up again if they fall. If that were true than why was nearly every other character a sheep!?)

P.s.s. I knew that Manchee was going to die the moment that Todd appreciated him. That's like signing his death warrant! I don't think I need to say that I would have picked the dog over Viola. I believed in Manchee's heart if not his mind. Sobs!

P.s.s.s. Todd should have also learned how to read without the ability just being given to him by the Mayor. Way to avoid any growth there, Ness. He's unreasonably angry to anyone who even brings his illiteracy up. What are you trying to tell us here by not making him work for it at all? That negates the entire point of the series, doesn't it? At least the one you said about how people deaden themselves to information overload. And then your hero doesn't ever have to face up to the anger he feels that he cannot read? He's given, not by choice, the ability through mind control. Is that what the spackle's collective noise highway is supposed to be? About being told and not about listening? How is that choice? Are you trying to tell your readers that you shouldn't earn anything, or face up to your limitations? This says more about Todd, and Ness's values for his character and world, than I ever could.

And what happened to the Patrick Ness who wrote that Todd and Viola clung to each other only because they had no one else? Why? Why?! Why would Viola let go of everyone else? Don't tell me it is because Todd is inherently more special than anyone else. Don't you dare say that.

Ps.s.s.s.s I'm also ticked off that Ness tells us (via the Mayor, of course) that Todd is a BETTER PERSON than Davy Prentiss. Todd is his "leader". They almost had a relationship until Ness decided it was worth more to just tell us that Todd rubbed off on him by being a better person. They couldn't get to know each other. Nope, Todd had to be the leader. Equality is for the dogs, eh? Listening to people... Nope. Leader bullshit. Again. Um, even though Todd rolled over same as Davy. (Oh wait, it was for super special Viola. So other people don't count. It's for VIOLA. She's special.) They hailed from the same culture, suffered under the same numbing mental pressure and both refused to think for themselves. How about investigating the why of that? No? How the fuck is Todd a BETTER PERSON than Davy? (Davy had the influence of the Mayor. Todd had Ben. In my mind, that makes Todd LUCKY, not better by rights.) Because the author says he is?! I guess the second book was kinda sucky in the same was as the third. Why was I surprised?

You are not being yourself if you don't even try.