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laurasauras's review against another edition
slow-paced
3.0
This was a very strange book. Sometimes I wonder if authors who have got to a certain level of popularity are unable to find editors who are brave enough to say "mate, this could be half the length" or "please reread your previous novels, because there's nothing wrong with playing with style but the only thing this world has in common with that one is some character names". I will say, Michael Sheen did an absolutely amazing job narrating it.
The first part, before the flood, does a lot of set up, and there's not a whole lot of pay off. The Hitler Youth subplot is interesting and tense, but then that just abruptly stops mattering. Oakley Street does absolutely nothing--especially the scenes from the perspectives of the Oakley Street adults, they literally accomplish nothing, not even really exposition. It's weird how each day is accounted for. Malcolm goes and helps the nuns or the handyman or works in The Trout so many times, where surely the events could have been combined.
And then the flood happens and the book straight up turns into The Odyssey. Not just in terms of length, but the heroes get to a new place, they have a little self-contained episode, then they move onto the next island. And it happens again, and again, and again. Not even halfway through I'm jiggling in my seat shouting for Malcolm to just get home and kill all the suitors already! Bonneville as a recurring villain was really strange, because he was just Always There and I know that in a canoe they were at the mercy of the current, but it didn't matter how fast or slow they went, he was always right behind them or waiting for them. Out of all the supernatural creatures that they encountered in the flood, he was supposed to be an ordinary man but he was absolutely the most uncanny. I have no idea what purpose his paedophilic thing with Alice served for the story apart from showing how predatory he was and giving Malcolm a convincing enough reason to separate from Asta to save her from being graphically raped by graphically killing him (which has no emotional impact on Malcolm) and ... that's it? Like, there's still the danger of the CDC or whatever, but it's so anti-climactic. And even more so really, because they never confront the CDC, they just make it to their destination and then Asriel wraps everything up in a couple minutes. Really abrupt ending.
I did genuinely like Malcolm while I was reading (listening), but on reflection he's very much the author's darling. He's soooo brave and strong and he suffers in silence as he sacrifices his body and soul to keep Lyra and Alice safe, and before that he was the goodest student and son, like there's not a child in the world who is as unfailingly good as Malcolm. Alice fell really flat for me for some reason. She's Feisty™️and doesn't want to be the surrogate mother to Lyra, but that's basically the role she's forced into. I didn't get a sense of what she wanted and I think Malcolm was so careful of respecting her privacy and peace and having these moments of quiet understanding or whatever that we never were actually given an opportunity to know who she was. In all honesty, and please know that the His Dark Materials trilogy is one of my favourite series as I say this, characters have never been Pullman's strong suit. None of his characters feel like real people, but that's usually just fine. They feel like storybook characters, larger and yet simpler than life. Every character can be summed up in a sentence and they always act according to that sentence. It's a great way to keep things consistent. But, where in HDM Lyra had to make impossible choices that went against her defining trait and grew as a person because of it, the characters in LBS just kinda do their thing.
I give it three stars because I do love the world and I was at least a little engaged for most of it, just ultimately unsatisfied.
The first part, before the flood, does a lot of set up, and there's not a whole lot of pay off. The Hitler Youth subplot is interesting and tense, but then that just abruptly stops mattering. Oakley Street does absolutely nothing--especially the scenes from the perspectives of the Oakley Street adults, they literally accomplish nothing, not even really exposition. It's weird how each day is accounted for. Malcolm goes and helps the nuns or the handyman or works in The Trout so many times, where surely the events could have been combined.
And then the flood happens and the book straight up turns into The Odyssey. Not just in terms of length, but the heroes get to a new place, they have a little self-contained episode, then they move onto the next island. And it happens again, and again, and again. Not even halfway through I'm jiggling in my seat shouting for Malcolm to just get home and kill all the suitors already! Bonneville as a recurring villain was really strange, because he was just Always There and I know that in a canoe they were at the mercy of the current, but it didn't matter how fast or slow they went, he was always right behind them or waiting for them. Out of all the supernatural creatures that they encountered in the flood, he was supposed to be an ordinary man but he was absolutely the most uncanny. I have no idea what purpose his paedophilic thing with Alice served for the story apart from showing how predatory he was and giving Malcolm a convincing enough reason
I did genuinely like Malcolm while I was reading (listening), but on reflection he's very much the author's darling. He's soooo brave and strong and he suffers in silence as he sacrifices his body and soul to keep Lyra and Alice safe, and before that he was the goodest student and son, like there's not a child in the world who is as unfailingly good as Malcolm. Alice fell really flat for me for some reason. She's Feisty™️and doesn't want to be the surrogate mother to Lyra, but that's basically the role she's forced into. I didn't get a sense of what she wanted and I think Malcolm was so careful of respecting her privacy and peace and having these moments of quiet understanding or whatever that we never were actually given an opportunity to know who she was. In all honesty, and please know that the His Dark Materials trilogy is one of my favourite series as I say this, characters have never been Pullman's strong suit. None of his characters feel like real people, but that's usually just fine. They feel like storybook characters, larger and yet simpler than life. Every character can be summed up in a sentence and they always act according to that sentence. It's a great way to keep things consistent. But, where in HDM Lyra had to make impossible choices that went against her defining trait and grew as a person because of it, the characters in LBS just kinda do their thing.
I give it three stars because I do love the world and I was at least a little engaged for most of it, just ultimately unsatisfied.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
smittenibelieve's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pedophilia and Sexual assault
chrissycat1115's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, and Murder
_mynameisdrew's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
themadtink's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
The end is a bit rush, as in every Pullman book.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual violence
ineedsomemoretea's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault
fraeyalise's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
I really wish he hadn't included one specific part. I wish he had just left it vague. It really bothers me.
This book started out very familiar feeling but ended very dark. I feel sad and lost. It ended so suddenly. I just... I don't know.
This book started out very familiar feeling but ended very dark. I feel sad and lost. It ended so suddenly. I just... I don't know.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault
Minor: Pedophilia
nessynoname's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
The first half of the book I was on board with. It sets up a very grounded story of a callow young boy becoming involved with spywork in a time of tenuous ideological conflict, quite in league with what one might come to expect having read Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. I think someone else described the 2nd half of the book something like a whimsical Homerian Odyssey, random vignettes brushing with supernatural beings and scenarios and then moving on, and, yeah, that would be one of the more charitable ways to put it. The two halves are quite disparate to an IMO distractable degree.
In the first half of the book, I thought the subplot of the Consistorial Court recruiting literal schoolchildren to be their morality police, and the way it upended the dynamics of the school, was really fascinating. At the same time, I found Pullman’s signature anti-organized religion message kind of heavy handed this time. For the life of me I do not recall the adherents of the Church in Lyra’s World being explicitly specified as Christians/followers of Jesus in the entirity of the His Dark Materials series, (the Magisterium is the name of a real-world office of the Catholic Church so the writing is kind of on the wall about it, but stay with me.) Obviously, they would be Christians by name in Will’s World because Will’s World is our world but I somehow thought Lyra’s world lacked the Christ figure. That is apparently not the case and I found it kind of jarring to hear Malcolm recite real world Bible stories and for an entire subplot of the church sanctioning a league of morality police school children encouraged to snitch on their own sinful heathan families so they could prove their love and loyalty to Jesus.
Another hurdle for me was the whiplash of trying to figure out what the actual age rating of this book is. La Belle Sauvage is darker and interacts with more mature topics by orders of magnitude over His Dark Materials. Even though I was still sort of hung up on my ‘edgy middle readers’ framework of this world (the age rating of the original HDM,) discovering the book was actually categorized with a YA rating temporarily assuaged me when I was reading about the subtle political maneuverings of a spy organization and the dense lessons of philosophy Dr. Relf imparts on Malcolm, and then also, you know, the religiously brainwashed child spies. Then I got to the pedophillic sex criminal who wants to steal and infant from a pair of 11-year-olds I was just very bewildered and sort of aghast. I don’t want to think of myself as a pearl-clutcher, but I honestly think these topics would be murky even in an adult novel. Forget the young adult audience, Bonneville made *me* uncomfortable, and not in the way that is a compliment to a written villain.
And then, as was said, the 2nd half, when the flood begins and the two children and their infant charge paddle around in a canoe, evading a murderer/rapist, and also have run ins with bizarre, dream-like fairytale beings that don’t really have any explained basis in the worldbuilding? They just kind of happen? I don’t know. The 2nd half really started to lose me. I had trouble paying attention and understanding what was going on. There is one final coup de grace right at the end during the climax where there is a not explicitly stated and pretty well implied rape scene (at the very least a scene of physical assault with sexual undertones) immediately followed up by a murder and my brain just kind of blue screened. I’m just really not sure what to think.
The first half is a really solid and intriguing narrative with some interesting things to say, just with some bizarrely heavy topics sprinkled in, and then the 2nd half just kind of goes off the rails. Yeesh.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Violence, Excrement, and Murder
Moderate: Mental illness, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, Stalking, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Torture
alixlowe's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault and Violence
nadiaherondale's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Although I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as I did the original trilogy it still is a good book: after all it's written by Philip Pullman and he is a narrative master. I loved the storytelling and the little cameos and the spying subplot, but in the end some parts felt repetitive and I ended up bored.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual content