A beautiful and compelling trilogy
5 stars
Wonderful, rich and diverse characters. A plot that made me gasp when I realised the totality of it. I was spellbound ❤️👌
English language
Published Sept. 23, 2003 by Laurel Leaf.
His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)
4 stars
(120 reviews)
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
Review of 'His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Not my usual genre and I'm not a fan of 3rd-person omniscient POV, but I enjoyed it. Although my interest began to wane near the end.
Review of 'His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This was pretty good! It definitely got me way more invested in the overarching story than the first one, even though it definitely felt more like a lead in to the last installment rather than its own standalone story. I'm looking forward to finishing the trilogy.
Review of 'His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Good book with interesting characters and plots.
Most of them still familiar from book 1, which I enjoyed more.
Towards the end it felt as if there were quite a lot of named characters that will not return in book 3, making it all a bit confusing at moments.
Still, a very worthwhile read. :)
Review of 'His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Very interesting world I was immersed in.
Colourful, recognisable and strange at the same time.
Onwards with book 2!
Review of 'His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
There is an emphasis on the Y in YA of this series and I have no objections to that. I was okay with the pace that Golden Compass and Subtle Knife went. The books slowly built the worlds, introduced characters and conflicts and everything went at a steady pace.
Amber Spyglass was a bull in a China shop. Worlds, characters, creatures, political plots, inevitable war and all of that under a heavy layer of religious symbolism. The jump from Subtle Knife to Amber Spyglass was jarring enough that I would have doubted I was in the same series if it wasn't for a few familiar characters.
The final book in the series felt out of place with the rest that it felt like another author completed it using notes from Pullman. Either the entire series should have been on a bigger scale like Amber Spyglass, or Amber Spyglass should have …
There is an emphasis on the Y in YA of this series and I have no objections to that. I was okay with the pace that Golden Compass and Subtle Knife went. The books slowly built the worlds, introduced characters and conflicts and everything went at a steady pace.
Amber Spyglass was a bull in a China shop. Worlds, characters, creatures, political plots, inevitable war and all of that under a heavy layer of religious symbolism. The jump from Subtle Knife to Amber Spyglass was jarring enough that I would have doubted I was in the same series if it wasn't for a few familiar characters.
The final book in the series felt out of place with the rest that it felt like another author completed it using notes from Pullman. Either the entire series should have been on a bigger scale like Amber Spyglass, or Amber Spyglass should have had its wings clipped and been less ambitious.
I may have found the final book to be poorly executed but that didn't mean I disliked the story. The premise of infinite worlds (yay multi-verse!) resting on top of each other is strong start. The worlds had rules and failing to follow those would be fatal (hooray for limits that were followed). I didn't mind the religious symbolism either, but it felt a bit overdone.
Unfortunately the third book was a disappointment and the enthusiasm I had with the first two was quickly lost as I reached the midway point in Amber Spyglass. If the third book hadn't existed then the story would have been approaching four stars, but with it I give this a fairly confident 'it was okay' rating.
