A review by bhav
The Secret Commonwealth, by Philip Pullman
2.0
I read this book, but did I read this book? I felt myself skimming so very much, and losing track of how many characters there were (so many characters and no Will the moment she sees Will in the shadowy dream I got so excited, but alas, he was not to return :(). It feels so long and winding and not in a good way. Plus, almost all of this book being Lyra away from Pan made this book genuinely difficult to read. I also agree with the other reviews about Lyra (despite being 20) being romantically paired with Malcom felt very strange.
There were certainly parts I enjoyed of this book, more insight into deamons and the connection between daemons and humans and what that means in Lyra's world, like Lyra on the ferry with everyone staring at her or judging her for having a daemon, in our world I suppose a good paralell to that would loss of self/neurodivergency. But, something that confused me about this is at times people would be shocked by Lyra not being connected to a daemon, and at other times she could pretend to be a witch (who in this world don't have daemons) to prevent others from judging her. Not sure if I'm missing something, but why couldn't she pretend she was a witch the whole time? Furthermore, the moments I enjoyed were felt few and far between. For the Book of Dust series, I don't really feel like I'm getting any more about what dust is, which is something I've struggled to understand completely since the first book of His Dark Materials. And apart from small moments, this series doesn't neccesarily feel deeper than the first trilogy despite being much longer.
I'm hoping this book just suffers from second book syndrome honestly, because as a bridge for the trilogy it doesn't really work for me, but I'll still have a little hope for the third book.
There were certainly parts I enjoyed of this book, more insight into deamons and the connection between daemons and humans and what that means in Lyra's world, like Lyra on the ferry with everyone staring at her or judging her for having a daemon, in our world I suppose a good paralell to that would loss of self/neurodivergency. But, something that confused me about this is at times people would be shocked by Lyra not being connected to a daemon, and at other times she could pretend to be a witch (who in this world don't have daemons) to prevent others from judging her. Not sure if I'm missing something, but why couldn't she pretend she was a witch the whole time? Furthermore, the moments I enjoyed were felt few and far between. For the Book of Dust series, I don't really feel like I'm getting any more about what dust is, which is something I've struggled to understand completely since the first book of His Dark Materials. And apart from small moments, this series doesn't neccesarily feel deeper than the first trilogy despite being much longer.
I'm hoping this book just suffers from second book syndrome honestly, because as a bridge for the trilogy it doesn't really work for me, but I'll still have a little hope for the third book.