Synopsis: The second installment in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, join Lyra as her terrifying journey continues.
-----
She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy?
The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer.
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once.
Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld – Cittàgazze, where soul-eating Spectres stalk the streets and wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky.
But she is not without allies: twelve-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another's, has also stumbled into this strange new realm.
On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power.
And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat – and the shattering truth of their own destiny.
Review: The Subtle Knife suffers a bit from middle book syndrome. I still liked Lyra, and I enjoyed getting to know Will, but the story felt a bit all over the place. I think that largely is because it's set in 2 parallel worlds. We don't really need an introduction to Will's world because it's the one we live in. That being said, I thought The Subtle Knife was going to be set primarily in Cittàgazze, but we jump between worlds quite often. There are even scenes in Lyra's world where we follow some characters from The Golden Compass. I will say that I enjoyed seeing what happens to people as they cross from one world to another. We find out that the idea of a daemon exists everywhere, but they only physically manifest in certain places. The Subtle Knife does follow a similar theme to The Golden Compass in regards to children hitting puberty. We learn that, in Cittàgazze, Spectres leave you alone when you're a child, but adults tend to be in danger. This is similar to the idea presented in The Golden Compass about Dust being bad and only attaching itself to adults. I did appreciate that little nod to The Golden Compass.
A bit slow and sometimes hard to follow. I'm quite interested to see how everything comes together.
3 howls
Comments