Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Secret Commonwealth

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

50 reviews

nickabockaglory's review against another edition

2.0

Overall I was disappointed with this book. I'm a massive His Dark Materials fan and mostly enjoyed La Belle Sauvage but this one didn't hit for me, and actually brought up some major problems for me in the series.

Firstly, it was far too long. I never wanted to pick it up because it was massive and the story was convoluted and telling it from such a huge range of perspectives was confusing to follow. I felt like I needed a character list at various points to remind me who people were since it had been ages since I had heard anything about them. And on reflection, very little actually happened across the book as a whole.

Secondly, I have MAJOR issues with

the sexualisatiom of Lyra. Both from her sexual assault/attempted rape and even worse, from the alleged "love" of Malcolm. He has known her since she was a literal baby and is 10+ years older than her. He should not be checking out her body and claiming he is in love with her. That is so creepy. And makes me really wonder about Pullman's own moral stance on this. Plus having the attempted rape in this book brought to my attention the rape in the first book and I wonder why a YA series needs to repeatedly have such violent, sexual abuse of women??

I enjoyed getting more from Lyra's story although I found it hard to believe she'd be so altered from the person we knew in HDM that she would lose her sense of fun and imagination.
I wanted more from Malcolm after getting to know him in Book 1.

I will read the third book when it is released because I am a completist but I will not be raising my expectations or expecting to fall in love with this like I did with HDM and so many people assured me I would in this.

Borrowed from my local library.

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samara_mattos's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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francisfrancis's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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sunandmoon's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

2.5

WHY PHILIP WHY do you absolutely want

your 30 something man to fall in love with 21yo LYRA, why did you think it was necessary for her to be assaulted

and then go about her quest almost like nothing had happened? Do you hate her and us that much?
What a disappointment after the beautiful book that was La Belle Sauvage.

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annir's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? Yes

2.5

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rakkaussipsi's review against another edition

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This book broke my heart. I wish I never started it. Moving forward I will probably pretend that Lyra’s story ended with Serpentine.

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solvoid's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I did not hate it but there are certain moments that almost took me out of the story entirely for the worse.

I will probably read the sequel cause I need to know how it ends but we're still waiting on that.

But yeah it is a bit orientalist and writing a romantic subplot for malcom and lyra in this day and age is quite a choice. He held lyra as a baby ffs.
But luckily there wasn't that much of that so I was able to just ignore that was a thing happening on the side.
So I really hope it isn't actually pursued into an actual relationship, I mean lyra hasn't expressed those sort of feelings at all.

I loved the whole thing with the daemons and separation and exploring lyra and her conflicting feelings and pantalaimon. And the pursuit of truth and imagination. That's why I kept going.
But yeah this is quite dark and I expected so and really makes you think.
It's just a shame, malcolm was such a lovable character in the first volume and the author chose to turn him into a creep.

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msmith892's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

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elenaluisa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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carcinokattastic's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Another fantastic book by Phillip Pulman in a world I truly love. My only gripe is about half way through some the chapters focus on the politics of the world (which is normally very good world building) and it feels like it drags a bit sadly.
But all in all I’m excited for the next one :)

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