Piper at the Gates of Dusk by Patrick Ness

This is not a book review, just a spoiler-free rant-like outpouring of my thoughts and emotions about this book:

Who else has been waiting for this book for as long as I have? It’s been over a decade since I first picked up the Chaos Walking trilogy during my younger years, so to finally have this book in my hands is so surreal. It’s like seeing an old friend again—someone you thought had left forever or even died, and then out of nowhere they bust down your living room door and walk in like nothing has happened.

I’ve reread the Chaos Walking trilogy like 7 times (and for sure I will keep rereading forever). Not only is the book series my favorite book series of all time, but Patrick is by far also my favorite author. I’ve treated these works like my treasure. I love them the way they are, and I’d never want any changes to them. The way the story ended was perfect. It was enough.

So my first thought going into this book was: “Okay, how can the author possibly continue this story without dragging it? Will he ruin the spark? Or will he even somehow top it or bring a new conversation into the story that’s every bit as unique and heart wrenching as the original?”

I finished the book in an afternoon and a morning. It was relatively short, and much, much faster-paced than the original.

But I can say this for sure.

That feeling that hit me over 10 years ago when I started this series hit me again this time. With the same force and the same emotion. Every characteristic of this book, from the incredibly familiar-feeling, tender and fragile first-person prose to the fantastical, psychedelic premise that marries a nitty gritty reality that’s familiar to us with an alien world so unlike our own… everything is there. Seeing the characters I’ve grown up with grow up themselves, it’s just magical! I kicked my feet and I giggled and I stared deadpan at the pages and my eyes got wet very often and I wanted to chew on the paper in anticipation and anxiety, and in the end Patrick does all these things so he can leave me on a cliffhanger just like he did with The Knife of Never Letting Go… man, I feel like a kid again.

I love the direction he’s taken with this new story. It has every bit of that love and comfort and uplift that he imbues into his writing for the young people of this world, especially the marginalised. He lets the reader know that the feelings and complexities of the thoughts of young people are every bit as important as grown-ups, and how their struggles become our struggles even if the grown-ups don’t take them seriously. From A Monster Calls, to Release, to The Rest of Us Just Live Here, to More Than This, all of the stories Patrick has written just have so much love in them that it’s sometimes hard to bear, but that’s why I love them so much.

And man, it’s just so nice to see Todd and Viola again. They’re like my babies… grown up babies…