The Knife of Never Letting Go
by Patrick Ness (Walker, 2008); audiobook read by Humphrey Bower (Bolinda, 2011)
A young adult quest with genuine moments of high emotion but also a relentless, dour futility that cries out for—yet in this first book of the trilogy, doesn’t afford—resolution. Bower’s audiobook reading is grist to the grimly dystopian first-person narrative.