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Darkly imagined and brilliantly created, the painful dystopian setting of a world full of noise in which all thoughts can be heard as if spoken is the background to this tense coming of age story. Todd is the last boy left in Prentisstown, a town where only men live. Approaching his thirteenth birthday, the moment at which he will become a man, Todd discovers a secret that puts him in great danger. Accompanied by his dog and guided by nothing much more than his own good sense, Todd makes his own way in a bleak and desolate world where the choices are hard.
Trade review
An unflinching novel about the impossible choices of growing up, by an award-winning writer. 'One of the best first sentences I've ever read and a book that lives up to it!' Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Ages: 12+.
Synopsis
Imagine you're the only boy in a town of men. And you can hear everything they think. And they can hear everything you think. Imagine you don't fit in with their plans... Todd Hewitt is just one month away from the birthday that will make him a man. But his town has been keeping secrets from him. Secrets that are going to force him to run.