Now that that's established, though, let's talk about what we do know. She's just not as transparent as some other characters thanks to keeping her thoughts to herself. And for us, it keeps Viola a bit of a mystery, too. Todd can't read her thoughts-and this confuses him: 'And then we don't say nothing for a minute. So you know how men have the Noise germ and women don't? Since the story is told from Todd's perspective, we get a limited view of Viola. Sadly her ship crashes, killing her parents and leaving her all alone.īefore we dig into Viola's character, though, there's one really important thing to note. She's a settler from the Old World, come to New World for a fresh start. No, seriously-that analogy isn't so far off. The novel ends on a cliffhanger, with Todd suddenly unable to hear the Noise.Viola is a shooting star that falls into the New World from a different planet. Mayor Prentiss rides into town on a horse and tells Todd that he is now President Prentiss. The Prentisstown army chases Todd and Viola to a large city called Haven. Viola kills Aaron with Todd’s knife, and Davy Prentiss, the town sheriff and Mayor Prentiss’s son, shoots Viola. If he can provoke Todd into murdering him, he will become a saint, and Todd will complete the Mayor’s perfect army of killers. Aaron is following Todd because he wants to be the sacrifice. Todd also learns that to become a man requires a Prentisstown boy to kill a man. As the pair flee, Todd eventually learns that the Prentisstown men killed all the women and blamed it on the Spackle, and neighboring communities treat Prentisstown with disdain. A crazed Prentisstown preacher named Aaron chases Todd and Viola. Todd has never seen a girl before Prentisstown lore says that all the women were killed by the Noise germ of the Spackles, the alien race native to New World. Todd flees into the swamp with Manchee, where they find a girl named Viola. On hearing about it, Ben and Cillian tell him he must leave immediately, and they send him away with a rucksack containing his mother’s journal. At home, information about the silence leaks out of Noise. Todd finds a pocket of silence in the swamp, which he describes as a hole in the noise. One day, Todd’s guardians-Ben and Cillian-send him into the swamp to pick apples with his dog, Manchee. The men hide their thoughts from him so that he can’t know.

Boys officially become men on their thirteenth birthdays, but Todd does not know how it happens. When the story begins, Todd’s thirteenth birthday is one month away.

The knife of never letting go about