Sci fi meets the old west

I checked out The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness, because I read about it somewhere, and when I checked, the ebook was available.  I have to say that I have never liked and hated a book so much at the same time.  

It's set in a world full of Noise.  Young Todd is soon to turn thirteen, at which point he becomes a man, in a world in which he is the last boy.  The Noise is the constant chatter caused by the fact that everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts...oh, and animals talking as well.  Oh the Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise.  There was a terrible war fought before Todd was born against the resident aliens, who infected them with thus ability to hear way too much.  And, it killed all the women.  Todd is the last baby born in a dying society.   One of the reasons I didn't like the book is that they use primitive spellings to get across the idea that they are all ignorant.  Words like "tho," "cuz," and "preparayshuns" are part of the style of writing (writin'), and I found it annoying.  Then, I didn't really like Todd all that much:  sullen, whiny, mean to his dog.  Hard to get behind this story.

Then, Todd finds a pocket of silence in a world of Noise.  Suddenly, he finds that secrets have been kept and he, and the source of the silence, must run for their lives.  Todd finds that the world in which he lives is not as dead as he believed, and, that much of what he was told about his town was a lie to hide a terrible past.

I'm certainly glad I didn't give up.  This book is surprising, thought-proviking, and exciting.  And, oddly, those annoying bits enhance the way the story sits.  It just does't sit right, and, it's not meant to.