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I read the His Dark Materials series probably 15 to 20 years ago. The first book, The Golden Compass, had me scratching my head a bit, not sure if I’d continue, but I was so glad I did; the other two books blew me away. I was drawn in by the grand story, the magic, the vivid imagination of the author. It was one of those sets of books that nothing else compares to. So my interest was piqued when this new set of books was announced. I ended up getting the audiobook and slowly listened over the course of a couple of months, as I walked, as I traveled, as I rowed at the gym.
This book starts when Lyra, the heroine of the Dark Materials books, is a baby. She is put into the care of a group of nuns near Oxford. Malcolm Polstead is the hero of this book; he is a boy of about 11 who lives across the river from the convent and likes to pop in to visit the nuns. His parents own an inn called the Trout. He helps out there, and in his spare time, he rows on the river on his little boat La Belle Sauvage.
When Malcolm discovers a secret message, he is brought into a world of spies. He learns about various topics from a kind academic and in turn provides her information about things he sees and overhears. And halfway through the story, he saves Lyra during a huge flood and protects her from evil forces who want to take her.
I’m of mixed opinions on this book. I enjoyed being back in the world Pullman created in Dark Materials. But I felt Pullman just didn’t fully go back there; it was missing the elements that created a sense of awe and magic for me. I wasn’t drawn in so much that I couldn’t put the story down; in fact, I leisurely listened to it a bit here and there. It doesn’t have a lot of actual story to it, either; it introduces a few topics but the main parts are that Malcolm learns about the different factions and that he protects Lyra by whisking her away on his boat. This book just falls far short of the grandness of the Dark Materials. I’m curious to see what he delivers in the next book in the series, set 20 years later. Hoping it captures more.
Rated: High. There are about five instances of strong language, as well as more instances of British cursing. There are makeout scenes, a rape, references to sick proclivities of one particularly bad character, and violence. There are just some really strange scenes that had me confused because this has always seemed to be a set of books for young people. This had a lot of adult content for a book that’s supposedly not just for adults but for younger readers.
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