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Title: Monsters of Men
Author: Patrick Ness
Genre: YA dystopian SF (book 3 of 3)
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: When we last left our heroes, terrible people made them make terrible decisions, which resulted in terrible things happening for two books running. Guess what happens in this book?
Thoughts: This is a little hard to discuss without involving some spoilers.
I very much appreciated that we acquired a new viewpoint character's voice with each book. Some of it's logistics, since Todd can't be everywhere at all times, but I think we would have lost a lot being trapped in Todd's head all the time. The fact is, he's not the brightest.
I also appreciated that the ending is deeply bittersweet, without being entirely hopeless (especially since the accompanying short story answers some questions). This is a YA novel, after all. And after the incredible downers of the first two books' endings, I don't think I could have borne another tragic ending.
That said--this felt like a cop-out to me, a bit. These books have always been about what it means to make the hard decisions, what kind of person that turns you into, and what ends are justified by what means. I felt that the end of the Answer was legitimate and earned. But how they deal with the Mayor...felt like cheating. Up until the last bit of this book, the Mayor has a constant Xanatos Gambit going. He's always one step ahead of the heroes. He always has a persuasive argument of why you should join him, just for a moment, just for this one thing, even though he fully acknowledges you're right and he's done terrible things. But you need him. Just right now. Then you can part ways, but right at this moment, you need to follow his plan. He's a fantastic, sickening demonstration of the corrosiveness of evil, and how people can make terrible decisions for what seem like the right reasons, and then how those decisions poison everything that comes after. I kept reading compulsively, desperate to see whether Todd finally managed to break free of the Mayor's hold.
And he doesn't really, because the Mayor breaks instead. Todd doesn't need to make a decision himself. And I felt like in the end, that betrayed the set up. Over and over Todd has made good and bad decisions under the Mayor's influence--I wanted to see him finally think his way clear. But he only really escapes because the Mayor gives up. And while I still think the world building was fascinating and the characters compelling and their voices believable and the questions raised to be burning ones, I ended up feeling a little bit cheated. The tone poem that's the last few pages didn't help.
Author: Patrick Ness
Genre: YA dystopian SF (book 3 of 3)
Thingummies: 4
Synopsis: When we last left our heroes, terrible people made them make terrible decisions, which resulted in terrible things happening for two books running. Guess what happens in this book?
Thoughts: This is a little hard to discuss without involving some spoilers.
I very much appreciated that we acquired a new viewpoint character's voice with each book. Some of it's logistics, since Todd can't be everywhere at all times, but I think we would have lost a lot being trapped in Todd's head all the time. The fact is, he's not the brightest.
I also appreciated that the ending is deeply bittersweet, without being entirely hopeless (especially since the accompanying short story answers some questions). This is a YA novel, after all. And after the incredible downers of the first two books' endings, I don't think I could have borne another tragic ending.
That said--this felt like a cop-out to me, a bit. These books have always been about what it means to make the hard decisions, what kind of person that turns you into, and what ends are justified by what means. I felt that the end of the Answer was legitimate and earned. But how they deal with the Mayor...felt like cheating. Up until the last bit of this book, the Mayor has a constant Xanatos Gambit going. He's always one step ahead of the heroes. He always has a persuasive argument of why you should join him, just for a moment, just for this one thing, even though he fully acknowledges you're right and he's done terrible things. But you need him. Just right now. Then you can part ways, but right at this moment, you need to follow his plan. He's a fantastic, sickening demonstration of the corrosiveness of evil, and how people can make terrible decisions for what seem like the right reasons, and then how those decisions poison everything that comes after. I kept reading compulsively, desperate to see whether Todd finally managed to break free of the Mayor's hold.
And he doesn't really, because the Mayor breaks instead. Todd doesn't need to make a decision himself. And I felt like in the end, that betrayed the set up. Over and over Todd has made good and bad decisions under the Mayor's influence--I wanted to see him finally think his way clear. But he only really escapes because the Mayor gives up. And while I still think the world building was fascinating and the characters compelling and their voices believable and the questions raised to be burning ones, I ended up feeling a little bit cheated. The tone poem that's the last few pages didn't help.
