I loved His Dark Materials. It was my Harry Potter. When I heard Mr. Pullman was going back to this wonderful world I was both excited and nervous. Sometimes the return journey to a place you love in fiction doesn't always work out. There was nothing to worry about.

This was probably my favorite book since the Golden Compass. It was so good. Full of drama and action. Characters who felt real faced with crazy ethical choices. Pullman always makes me think. I also felt their was a touch of horror and humor mixed together. While the book is a prequel it is well with the price of admission. I loved this book and can't wait to read the next one. ( )

Seems to lose its way in an extended river scene that introduces a bunch of new characters who generally don't seem to last more than one chapter. Very much feels like part of a book ( )

I...don't know. I might come back and give more points later. But His Dark Materials together are probably the most formative books in my life, and the bar might just be too high. Golden Compass was Just Another Fantasy novel when I read it, about the same time that Subtle Knife came out. But the six months between reading Golden Compass and Subtle Knife were very formative in my life (it was the transition from middle to high school) and so in many ways, reading Subtle Knife is deeply and fundamentally associated with starting to see symbolism in books, starting to ask existential questions about myself. Amber Spyglass was published just after my freshman year of college, and I read it multiple times back-to-back that summer, pondering the purposes of existence. Two years later, I saw each half of the stage production multiple times in the London National Theatre, and did the backstage tour twice. I have signatures of all of the actors. The altheiometer inset is framed on my wall, and it's not a coincidence that my avatar here is an altheiometer. HDM really formed who I am, how I interact with the world and how I read.

La Belle Sauvage, for now, at least, is Just Another Fantasy Novel. I have some specific concerns: the female characters have basically no agency (a major disappointment, after Lyra); the antediluvian portion of the novel really drags, with a few Whizbang!Fantasy moments but no real depth and the opportunity to use Daemons and worldbuilding to make the villain hair-raisingly creepy instead of just lazily using rape to signal moral corruption was passed over. But honestly, I could overlook all of those. My biggest disappointment was that there just wasn't much there there. I don't know if it's me -- that I'm older and less malleable by a book -- whether this book really is shallow, or whether it's set-building and the best is yet to come... ( )

No sabía si volver a esta historia después de algunos meses me encontraría fuera de ritmo; sin embargo, la disfruté mucho y disfruté mucho saber de dónde viene Lyra y la aventura de Malcolm para ayudarla a sobrevivir. Me gustó reencontrarme con su padre y, aunque tuviera menos desarrollo su personaje, encontrarme con ese cariño por su hija me gustó. ( )

No. Not yet. I didn't want to be done yet. . . ( )