The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After the fantastic first book this seems to have been written by someone else. What happened? Why was Golden Compass followed with such a slow-moving and hard-to-get-into story? And why was bratty but fun Lyra swapped with boring Will? I liked Lyra as a character, and my main complaint is that in the second book she stopped being the protagonist. Will came, and Will isn’t even half as fun as Lyra was. It’s like we left Bilbo Baggins somewhere in Mirkwood and followed one of the least interesting dwarves.
Another problem was the pacing. It was slow. And the worlds had become less interesting than they were in the first book. Sometimes it seemed that the author had no idea where he was going.
After the fantastic first book the second one was seriously lacking. I feel heartbroken.
I hope that the third part will be an improvement and Lyra will become the main character again.


View all my reviews