Let me quote the back cover blurb for you:

Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in a constant, overwhelming, never-ending Noise. There is no privacy. There are no secrets.

Then, just one month away from the birthday that will make Todd Hewitt a man, he unexpectedly stumbles on a spot of complete silence. Which is impossible.

(Not only do people hear each other’s thoughts – they also hear those of animals, and some animals even talk. Turns out dogs don’t have anything interesting to say. Mostly their talk revolves around poo and squirrels.)

Todd immediately realizes that the spot of silence is something special that needs to be kept a secret. But – secrets being nearly impossible in Prentisstown – others become suspicious, so he flees the town.

The story then becomes a thriller/adventure/escape story, where Todd of course discovers that not much in the world is the way he believed it was. And, as it is a coming-of-age story, he himself is not like he believed.

The first two thirds of the book I devoured with hardly a break: it’s fast-paced and action-filled and has some interesting ideas. But after a while the author runs out of story, and the plot becomes repetitive. Bad guys chase Todd, Todd flees, Todd is even more tired and hurt. Rinse and repeat. The bad guys are generally over-the-top evil and don’t even seem to have particularly good reasons for chasing him, they just seem to do so because Todd needs someone to fear and flee from.

Todd also keeps struggling with the question of whether or not he can kill someone who is trying to kill him. Which is a deep and worthy question to struggle with, but it never gets any more depth, it just gets asked the same way over and over again, which gets tiresome.

And when, at the very end of the book, Todd’s situation is essentially unchanged, with still the same bad guys to flee from, I knew I had had enough and was not interested in the next book in the series.