|| 5 ⭐️ ||

Look, call me a weird bookworm, but I don’t stay up past my bedtime reading books, no matter how engaging it is. Nothing gets between me and my circadian rhythm. Ever.

…But this book did.

6 stars for unputdownableness.

-1 stars for all the language and misuses of God’s name. It was very frustrating, that aspect, but the story itself had me so hooked that I can’t even really dock a star from my rating for that. I’m sorry. 

I’m also not the hugest fan of gruesome depictions of violence and murder and insanity, and this book was abundant in those scenes. But even for that, simply can’t bring myself to dock a star. 

The premise is unique. A boy living in a small town settlement full of men and no women, because “the germ” has killed off all the women, and have infected every man with “the Noise”—they can hear each other’s thoughts, every thought, from every man (and animal) in the town, night and day. This boy is the last boy in town—in 30 days he will turn 13 and become a man. And then some stuff happens and things get crazy, and I’ll let you find out the rest for yourself because what a ride.

Don’t let the very informal, messy, typo-filled narration turn you off. I was skeptical at the beginning too but it turned out to be the perfect creative choice for the telling of this story.

So even with all the negatives, and even though the book ends on a discouraging note and a bit of a cliff-hanger (I will be requesting the next book from my library immediately), this book gets the highest rating I can give it.

|| Content warnings ||

The book is fairly dark in its themes. A lot of gruesome murder and violence. Bodily fluids. God’s name misused quite a bit. Swearing (mostly d**n, the phrase “effing blah blah blah, except I didn’t say ‘effing’” is said a lot. No actual verbatim f-bombs except for one, I think). Some sexual references. A couple brief mentions of suicide.