Monsters Of Men

My independent reading book, Monsters of Men, by Patrick Ness, has made for some good reading. It is the third book in the Chaos Walking series, which also includes The Knife of Never Letting Go, and The Ask and the Answer. After capturing the president, who had earlier committed terrible crimes such as separating all women and men, controlling people’s minds, and probably killing all the women of his old town that he was mayor of. Todd and Viola are forced to release him to help fight off the indigenous people, known as Spackle, that were on the planet the story takes place in before the humans came. Todd stays with the mayor, fights in the war with the Spackle, and even starts to think better of the mayor, while Viola helps try to make peace of the war with the incoming ship (containing 5,000 people) that she was originally on before her pod crashed. Also trying to get the ship on their side are The Answer, an all female nurse terrorist organization that Viola used to be a part of and that can be good and bad at the same time. Todd and Viola do everything they can to be close to each other and keep each other alive, even if it means sending missiles at the Spackle while trying to make peace with them or following the president’s instructions. So far, the theme or message of the book has been to not give up on someone because of what they have done in the past. This has been the case with Todd and the president, and with the Spackle and the humans.