[WARNING: spoilers for the first two books of the series will necessarily follow.]

In the end, each of the Chaos Walking novels has its own themes, arcs, and stories, even as they all add up to one continuous tale. The first novel was an exploration of the world that Ness created, but also an allegory for how we function in an overwhelming amount of information, and how that men can learn to control that flood for their own purposes. The second was a novel about what we could find ourselves doing for a cause we thought was right, and just how far we could stretch our moral fibers. And book three? Book three is a novel about war, and what it does to us all - but it's also a book about morality, and redemption, and politics, and the way we can become so focused on winning that we neglect what may be right or wrong. And it does all of this while telling a riveting, powerhouse tale that left me stunned, unable to do much other than process the book for a while after I finished it. Just as threatened at the end of The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men is the tale of the war between humans and the Spackle. But it's also the tale of the conflict between the Mayor and the Answer, both of whom are so focused on their own beliefs as to what the future should hold that they find themselves unable to accept anything short of complete victory by their own terms. More fascinatingly, though, Ness also adds another narrator to the novel, one whose introduction adds an entirely new language, perspective, and view to all of the events of the novel. It's this character whose arc may be the most moving, ultimately, coming together in a climax that literally made me gasp with its honesty and painfulness. I've been floored by the whole Chaos Walking series, but even in the greatness of this series, Monsters of Men may be the most beautiful and powerful of the series. There's a beauty and a quiet hopefulness that emerges at the core of the novel that's hard to shake, especially in the midst of such horrors, and Ness's fusion of so many themes, ideas, strong characters, and great plotting all come together to make not just one of the best YA books I've read in recent memory, but one of the best books, period. I can't recommend this series enough. Go out and immerse yourself in Ness's world - it's a hard place, to be sure, but it's an incredible one as well, one that may affect you more than you ever expect it to.

[WARNING: spoilers for The Knife of Never Letting Go will necessarily follow.]

By the end of The Knife of Never Letting Go, Todd and Viola's flight had come to a stunning end as they discovered that the army from which they'd been fleeing all this time had already conquered everything in sight. What, then, does this new world order look like? Such is the central question of The Ask and the Answer, which finds our heroes thrust into two very diametrically opposed camps and forced to question whether the ends can ever truly justify the means. Like the best sequels, The Ask and the Answer feels less like a rehashing and more like a continuation of the first book's story, all while deepening the world that Ness has so vividly created. The first volume of the series was filled with grayed morality, and this book only increases that depth beautifully, covering some of the same ground Suzanne Collins did in Mockingjay but doing so in starker and maybe even more unflinching terms. The Ask and the Answer has to rank up there with the most engaging and fascinating science-fiction I've read in some time, as Ness takes his central conceits and follows them all the way to their logical ends, all while taking the time to create fully-realized, complex characters who defy easy description and moral choices that aren't as readily apparent as we might wish. The end result...well, let me be honest: if you think The Hunger Games is bleak (and it is), the Chaos Walking series makes those books look positively radiant and cheerful in comparison. But the story being told here is so riveting and fascinating, the characters so involving, the world so compelling, that the question of whether it's too bleak never comes up. Instead, you find yourself drawn into the tale inexorably, and the only time you'll stop is when you hit the end. And let me tell you: once again, you better have the next book ready. Because there's no way you'll want to wait for more.