Monsters of Men

Patrick Ness
Chaos Walking Trilogy (Book 3)

In this final installment, the two sides in the human war for dominance (men vs. women) decide to a precarious cease fire in order to collaborate agains a common enemy, the Spackle (or The Land as we soon learn). This cease fire and collaboration does not in anyway decrease the antagonism between the Mayor and Mistress Coyle, nor do the political machinations of either go away. They are just thrown into the mix of any decisions of the larger battle. I particularly like how Ness is willing to explicitly link bad decisions to prior bad decisions. He is explicitly calling us to think about making alternate decisions that lead to true peace, not the "only decision possible" which is generally violence. When those decision points arise, the characters always call to mind the previous "only decision possible", which only led to an escalation. In the end, this is still a tragic war, a tragic portrayal of the average human response to violence, and probably more than accurate picture of the ugliness of war on a personal and global level.  None of these books stand on their own, but as a trilogy, well done.
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