Title: Monsters of Men
Author: Patrick Ness
Series: Chaos Walking, #3
Genres: Adventure, Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Young Adult
Publisher: Candlewick
Date Published: September 28th, 2010
Edition: Hardcover
Rating:
“War,” says the Mayor. “At last.” Three armies march on New Prentisstown, each one intent on destroying the others. Todd and Viola are caught in the middle, with no chance of escape. As the battles commence, how can they hope to stop the fighting? How can there ever be peace when they’re so hopelessly outnumbered? And if war makes monsters of men, what terrible choices await? But then a third voice breaks into the battle, one bent on revenge – the electrifying finale to the award-winning “Chaos Walking” trilogy, Monsters of Men is a heart-stopping novel about power, survival, and the devastating realities of war.
My Review:
As a fan of the first two books, I’m a little baffled why so many people seem to be pretty satisfied with this as the conclusion to the Chaos Walking series. For me, it fell so short compared to the first two books which subtly dealt with the topic of morality and the delicate balance between good and bad wrapped up in solid stories that kept me turning the page.
Monsters of Men, however, failed to portray any kind of message and the story felt all over the place and repetitive.
The Mayor/President’s the bad guy, then Mistress Coyle is the bad guy, then the Spackle are. Then there’s peace between some/all of them. Then the cycle begins again at the beginning, over…and over…and over. I’m not even kidding when I say it was 600 pages of back and forth between the same recycled plot over and over again. It was like the story kept taking one step forward and then two steps back.
I was extremely disappointment with pretty much everything. I didn’t like that there was no deeper meaning that I could interpret. I didn’t like the story itself, and I didn’t like how everything turned out in the end.
What was the point of semi-killing off Todd at the end only to put him into a coma? I’m all for a dramatic turn of events if the story calls for it. But it didn’t further the plot in any way whatsoever. It only served to shock and anger the reader when everything was already wrapped up by the time it happened.
So no, I can’t say that I liked really anything about this book. Even Todd and Viola’s characters seemed like watered-down versions of themselves from the previous books. I had pretty high hopes of liking this since I’ve enjoyed the series thus far. But I don’t think it’s a very good ending to the series and that’s sad to say when it’s been a pretty strong series as a whole.
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