Here, I appreciated the messages that emerged at the very end, but the story of the whales hunting Toby Wick (yes, it's a retelling of Moby-Dick from the perspective of a whale) almost put me to sleep. In Release, I really enjoyed the emotional chapters about a teenage boy coming to terms with his sexuality in a deeply religious family, but the weird magical realism chapters did nothing for me.
That being said, his experimental style doesn't always work for me. And The Knife of Never Letting Go is still one of my all time favourites. That's why I will keep reading his books. He doesn't care for tropes or trends he simply looks to tell an interesting and unique story. I've definitely said this before but I'd like to stress it again: I love that Patrick Ness gets creative. The writing is as beautiful as you might expect, and its literary style, as well as some dark imagery, make it appropriate for older readers.An interesting message but, unfortunately, it seems no amount of interesting messages can make a story about a pod of whales not boring. With a reversal of point of view (a literal one, with Rovina Cai’s exceptional illustration showing whales swimming upside down, with the ocean floor as their sky) comes Ness’ re-visioning of the patriarchal exploitation of the natural world, and of man’s destructive obsession to conquer what he falsely believes he is master of. In Patrick Ness’ amazing homage to the American literature classic Moby Dick, the worlds of ocean and sky are upturned, and it’s a whale that tells her version of the story of hunter and hunted. When Bathsheba and her crew find a man ship, they also find a sign that puts them on the trail of Toby Wick, a devil that all whales grow up fearing. Trained as an apprentice, she finds herself the most junior member of a hunting party led by the formidable and infamous Captain Alexandra, who still has the rusted end of a human harpoon sticking out from her head. Bathsheba is a whale that is destined to hunt humans, even though the hunt is often deadly.
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