I love Patrick Ness’ writing. While I freely admit that I
haven’t read his novels, I still have a great affection for the man’s art based
purely on his work for the big and small screen. I mentioned in my review for
it how much I dug his approach to storytelling with A Monster Calls, and for as
little attention as it got, his work on the Doctor Who spin-off Class had quite
a few moments of true inspiration within its stunted 8-episode run. At a time
when young-adult storytelling has gone from strength to strength in the
mainstream, the way Ness approaches incredibly morbid topics like grief,
trauma, and loss, has already revealed him to be in the upper echelon of that
grouping. So, when news hit that his Chaos Walking trilogy of books were going
to get the cinematic treatment, with Ness himself co-writing the script, I was
ready for him to impress yet again. What I actually got, though, is… not that.
