Rating: 5/5
Monsters of Men, the third and last book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy. This is my second time around reading this book, but it seems to just keep getting better and better (good excuse to reread for a third time?). It’s the only CW book that switches character perspective over the chapters, which adds to the effect and theme that Ness has built up over the series—that of identity but, most of all, individuality. The three voices that he switches between are those of Todd Hewitt and Viola Eade—our two teenage protagonists, one from the Old World and one from the New—and a member of the indigenous Spackle species, 1017, who has a dangerous hunger for revenge on the colonists of New World.
Mayor Prentiss will always be my favourite Chaos Walking character. He’s funny, he’s sly, he’s mysterious, but above all, he’s not one-dimensional like many modern characters you might read about. A theme that runs throughout the book is that of redemption; in the first two CW novels, the Mayor committed horrific atrocities that Todd thought he would never be able to forgive him for—but in Monsters of Men, the Mayor does seem to have changed into more of a man than a monster. What Todd has failed to realise is that the mind-controlling, propagandistic manipulation that the Mayor was renowned for back in Todd’s hometown might still be in use…
“War makes monsters of men, you once said to me, Todd. Well, so does too much knowledge. Too much knowledge of your fellow man, too much knowledge of his weakness, his pathetic greed and vanity, and how laughably easy it is to control him.”
The fact that every thought of every being can be heard (in the form of an incessant outpouring of Noise) makes it difficult for Todd and Viola to stay together through the war that is constantly being waged on New World. The Mayor has taught Todd how to silence his Noise, thus concealing his thoughts, which abuses the trust between him and Viola (another theme in the book). Alone and afraid, the two of them find themselves drifting off to different sides in the war: one to a tyrant, another to a terrorist. Todd and Viola, desperate for peace with the invading Spackle, try and convince both the Mayor and Mistress Coyle (leader of the Answer from The Ask and the Answer) to make peace with the natives, but the leaders’ hatred for each other ends up with the process of peacemaking becoming a war in itself.
They’re fighting a war over who can be more peaceful.
The concept of war is portrayed very differently in Monsters of Men than anywhere else I’ve read about it. Todd, at only fourteen, finds himself caught up in a fight with the bloodthirsty Spackle, and it’s interesting to hear how he views the battle from his perspective.
The air and the sky and my brain and my soul are filled with war and I’m bleeding it outta my ears and spitting it outta my mouth and it’s like it’s the only thing I ever knew, the only thing I can ever remember, the only that’s ever gonna happen to me…
Viola’s scout ship from Old World lands at the beginning of the book. One of its occupants, a man called Bradley, is determined to make peace with the Spackle, the Mayor and Mistress Coyle. It’s interesting to have so many different characters with so many different opinions all in one book, offering a taste of every individual perspective in one huge war. Bradley once says to Viola:
“We were expecting dead settlements and hopefully you and your parents in the middle of it all. Instead we got a dictator, a revolutionary, and an invading army of natives.”
I think that one quote just about sums up the entire book.
Growing up amidst the turmoil and death, Viola and Todd find themselves caught up in a philosophical war as well as a physical one. Constantly being told not to “make war personal”, but finding that both would go to terrible extremes to save one another, Todd and Viola become increasingly entangled in their responsibilities on this wartorn planet.
If this is what Todd and I would do for each other, does that make us right? Or does it makes us dangerous?
It will take me a long time to get over the cliffhanger ending of this book, and the concept in general that it’s actually finished and I’m never going to read it again. A masterpiece of modern YA science fiction, it’s inspiring, original and utterly heartbreaking.
“Ideals, my girl,” she says. “Always easier to believe in than live.”
“But if you don’t at least try to leave them,” Bradley says, “then there’s no point in living at all.”
Mistress Coyle looks at him slyly. “Which is another ideal in itself.”
**2019 review**
I LOVED this book. It was really well-written and had many philosophical ideas behind it, including fascinating conceptual questions such as, “Is everyone redeemable?” and “Should you wage a war for a few important people which will end up killing thousands of others?” I thought that it was very interesting.
Viola’s scout ship from the Old World lands right at the beginning of the book, and she must leave Todd to find them. When they next meet each other, Todd is fighting in a terrible war and Viola doesn’t know whose side to be on.
I can’t express how much I enjoyed this book! The Chaos Walking series is incredible and I just hope that the film will live up to the novels!