Quite an astounding book!

There are so many things about this which are fantastic: the central concept of the Noise is a startlingly good one, allowing men's thoughts unfiltered to be constantly projected into the world; the pace of the novel never lets up following quite literally a linear route from Prentissville to Haven; and the writing is at times genuinely inspired - the Noise is a man unfiltered and a man unfiltered is Chaos Walking - fantastic! - and the moment when Todd realises that he can read Viola even though she has no Noise in genuinely touching.

Over and above this, however, there are two things which make this stand out. The voice of Todd Hewitt is genuinely engaging, realistic and compelling; the uneducated illiterate deceived Boy Who Cannot Kill, presented with all the phonetic spellings (which I did not find distracting at all) and the free form writing which twisted and broke the rules of grammar and punctuation and created something which at points becomes almost poetic. Secondly, this is a writer who is brave enough not to lie to, patronise or wrap in cotton wool his audience. This is no fairytale, there are no false happy endings: without giving the ending away, the final pages are fantastically bleak, brave and honest.

A fantastic read which looks like it is only going to get better in The Ask and The Answer!