The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking Series #2)

Reaching the end of their flight in THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO, Todd and Viola did not find healing and hope in Haven. They found instead their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss, waiting to welcome them to New Prentisstown. There they are forced into separate lives: Todd to prison, and Viola to a house of healing where her wounds are treated. Soon Viola is swept into the ruthless activities of the Answer, while Todd faces impossible choices when forced to join the mayor’s oppressive new regime. In alternating narratives the two struggle to reconcile their own dubious actions with their deepest beliefs. Torn by confusion and compromise, suspicion and betrayal, can their trust in each other possibly survive?

Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss. Immediately separated from Viola and imprisoned, Todd is forced to learn the ways of the Mayor’s terrifying new order. But everything is shrouded in secrets. Where is Viola? Is she even still alive? And who are the mysterious Answer? And then one day, the bombs begin to explode. . . .

“Are revolutionaries the same as terrorists? That’s not just a theoretical question as we watch the protagonists forced into taking sides.” — Chicago Tribune

“Gripping. . . . A stunningly clear depiction of the moral wreckage of civil war.” — The Wall Street Journal

“Brilliantly conceived and executed. . . . If Knife provided the cut, this follow-up provides the fester.” — Booklist (starred review)

Publishers Weekly

This grim and beautifully written sequel to Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go picks up where its predecessor left off and will have readers racing to its painful conclusion. Having escaped from the dystopian, all-male Prentisstown, teenagers Todd and Viola have fled to the city of Haven, only to discover that Prentisstown's mayor, a powerful and charismatic sociopath, has gotten there first, intent on controlling the entire planet. Separated, the friends are caught up on opposite sides of a horrific, morally ambiguous civil war, with Todd coming close to madness. (Viola later reminds Todd, who has undertaken some shocking and cruel responsibilities while working with the mayor, “We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again.”) This superb novel, which ends with a gripping cliffhanger that sets up the third Chaos Walking book, uses a brilliant cast of well-developed characters and its singular setting and premise to present a provocative examination of the nature of evil and humanity. This is among the best YA science fiction novels of the year. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)

Patrick Ness is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy: The Knife of Never Letting Go, which won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize, The Ask and the Answer, which won the Costa Children’s Book Award, and Monsters of Men. He has written two books for adults and is a literary critic for the Guardian. Born in Virginia, Patrick Ness lives in London.