I have really enjoyed the first two parts of Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy, and this final installment, whilst not as harrowing as it’s predecessor, is no disappointment. Whilst, in my opinion, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy kind of petered out, Ness does not allow his trilogy to dwindle, and his ending is something else.The novel essentially picks up from where The Ask & The Answer left off, with the approaching Spackle army facing off the main town run by Mayor Prentiss and the Answer cell group. This means that the reader gets an additional narrative viewpoint, with the introduction of a Spackle narrator alongside Todd and Viola; which allows the reader to finally have a ‘grassroots’ explanation of how the Spackle live. We also have the addition of a couple more characters, Bradley and Simone, from Viola’s home planet who have come to check how suitable the planet is for them to settle. Bradley in particular is an interesting addition, as as well as being the voice of reason through much of the novel, he also has to deal with the problem of Noise; and seeing someone come to terms with all their private thoughts becoming public was really interesting, and not a perspective that Ness had previously dealt with.The characters from the other two novels were back here in force. Mistress Coyle remained something of an enigma; although her motives seem more in favour of the whole than Prentiss’, she seems equally power hungry. However, it is fair to say that Mayor Prentiss remains the bad guy to end all bad guys. He is borderline mad throughout this novel, and his manipulation of Todd is heartbreakingly clear to the reader (at least to me, if I was younger this may not be the case). He remains a total tyrant, and an all-round nasty character, despite Ness’ slight attempt to give him a reason for his craziness. Of course, the main two characters are Todd and Viola and they both remain great characters who you really, really care about as the reader. All in all, Monsters of Men was a great end to a really great Young Adult trilogy. Although there were a couple of twists that I didn’t really like, the novel was a great last piece to the puzzle, even if the ending still left the reader a little in the dark about how everything would work out. I highly recommend this series, especially if ‘YA’ just conjures up images of vampires and werewolves.
