Figgy O'Connell

This was a huggable book for me.
You know the ones... You REALLY don't want to go to bed, but you have to. You're not ready to leave the story, so you hug it to your chest while you sleep, not unlike a cuddly toy. And maybe, just maybe, you might absorb some of the story through the pages.

No? Just me?

The first twenty percent of the book took me a lot longer to read than usual, but I blame that on a few real life things, rather than on the book. Though the opening was a little bit less compelling than the other two books.

There are just so many things to say about this book, that I don't know where to start.

The jumping between POV characters, while necessary, can be a little frustrating. It was used well, in that the reader often finds themselves at a cliffhanger. But when you're reading past your bed time, and keep saying "one more chapter", it's harder to justify "two more chapters of a different POV and THEN another one" about the character you're wanting to get back to.

I can't fault Mr Pullman's writing. His stories are so very epic, planned out, and his characters so real that sometimes you really don't know what to make of them. Characters I hated early on in the series or in this book changed, did something that made me want them to live long lives, or at least long enough for someone ELSE to know that they hadn't been all evil. The story definitely picks up pace again around page 180.


I think Mary Malone best sums up the people in this book, and the people in our own world.

"...I stopped believing that there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels."

Sometimes people do good things, sometimes they do bad things, and some people have more of a penchant for one than the other.


A few things did bother me about the story, of course. Like why, for example, did John Parry discover his daemon upon entering Lyra's world, but Will had to go to the world of the dead before his existed in a separate capacity himself. And other little bits and pieces that I can't call to mind right now.

THANKFULLY there were few typographical issues in the third book, so I didn't find myself jarred out of the story quite as much as I did throughout The Subtle Knife.


I think the main thing that struck me about this book, and will continue to upset me in future reads (but upset in a good way) was the ending. I am the sort of person who likes to hold onto my friends, and there are few things that disturb me as much as the idea that I will never be able to speak to them again.

I cried as much for Mary and Atal as I did for Will and Lyra. And the idea that there are all these people now stuck in their own worlds for the rest of their days, never able to contact those who would understand them the most.

I think the fear of this situation ties in with my zombie love, and the fact that, in the zombie apocalypse, it would be much harder to get in touch with my friends on the other side of Australia, let alone those who live in America or other countries.

The ending of this trilogy is like that, but a thousand times worse. To think of NEVER being able to find those people who are important to you, EVER again. *shudder*


Maybe later, once I have gained some distance and finished with the sniffles, I will be able word my thoughts about this book, and the trilogy, a little better.


Thank you, Mr Pullman, for a story that resonates with twenty-seven year old me just as strongly as teenage me. This remains in my favourites list, and I will revisit it in another ten years when my memories have faded a little and I can feel as though I am *almost* reading it for the first time again.

- Re-read in January 2014 -