The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
My rating: ✰✰✰✰
Library, E-book, Finished: 6/11/2012

If you have not read Book 1, this review will contain spoilers.

Todd and Viola have made it to Haven, but it is no haven. The Mayor of Prentissville has made there ahead of them. Separated and not knowing if the other is alive, each does their best to survive and make sure the other one also survives. People around them manipulate them and it is impossible to know who they can trust. Bad decisions are made by both due to misinformation and the influence of others.

This is told alternately by Todd and Viola. Todd’s continue in his rather uneducated manner, words are spelled the way they are pronounced. Viola’s is educated with proper spelling. This switch in narrators gives a more complete picture of the events as they progress. For a while they are on opposite sides. Todd with the ‘government’ and Viola with the terrorists.

Mayor Prentiss takes his leadership style from the third reich, separating ‘undesirables’ and assigning people numbers by branding them. As he moves to total control and the terrorists move to stop him, Todd and Viola end up caught in the middle, trying to protect each other and stop the total destruction both groups seem bent on.

I would recommend reading these books in order, they are more like one big book divided into 3 parts than three separate books. Also the writing in getting better as the story progresses. The characters are becoming more real and flawed as we go along. You know, or rather hope, that Todd and Viola survive, but at times it seems like that is impossible. The enjoyment in in watching them grow, the mistakes they make and figuring out how to get out of the way of destruction.

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