Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

65 reviews

tbose22's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping and Child death

Moderate: Child abuse and Animal death

Minor: Racism

katiefronk's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping and Child death

Minor: Animal cruelty, Torture, and Animal death

kirdyk's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Probably my favorite book of all time. From the first page you are no longer a reader, but a spectator of the vast world held within these pages.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, and Animal death

Moderate: Kidnapping and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Violence, War, Torture, and Animal cruelty

It's been a while since I've read book one, so trigger warnings are not exact; I'd suggest you refer to someone who's read it recently, or google.

ailsaod's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 This book wasn't what I'd expected and I'm not sure what to think about it. I feel like Pullman writes children far more accurately than most authors - Lyra is a feral little gremlin and not in a mostly sweet, occasionally troublesome way most people would portray her. Like this girl has been left mostly to her own devices to cause havoc for most of her life and you can tell! She is a very real feeling character who has believable flaws and is very resourceful but is still very much a child out of her depth.

The whole daemon thing was unlike anything else I had read before and was very interesting(if you aren't in the know 'daemons' are an animal representation of a human's soul that everyone has). The book is set in another version of Earth and Pullman has fully integrated much of the aspects he has added and considered the implications this would have for people's behaviour and culture.

This book does contain some darker elements (a lot of kidnapping of children, unethical experimentation and child death so that's FUN) and I found it impressive that Pullman can communicate the awfulness of the experiments being done in the arctic when it is based on things that are completely unknowable and impossible to us. In the opening chapters of the book a character makes an shocked remark about a child in a photograph being 'an entire child' which made me laugh at the time because isn't that a strange thing to say haha how amusing. Having finished the book I'm now like 'OH NO! That's not funny anymore! :0'

ALSO I am majorly reassessing everything about

Lord Asriel

because what is that man on??

Like I knew Mrs Coulter was going to be bad because of the way she was introduced as too good to be true but everyone in the book is like 'oh yea Lord Asriel is a great guy! The best guy ever!' and then when he finally gets more than like five pages on screen he's actually maybe worse than Mrs Coulter and does some casual murder just because. I thought he was going to be the typical 'Victorian father who is allergic to openly caring' but ACTUALLY it was a cover for 'religious extremist who is planning on wrecking everything'. All I can say that I guess they are the villain power couple I wasn't expecting but got anyway

.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Child abuse, Kidnapping, and Trafficking

Some unsettling scenes of unethical experimentation on children.

fruya's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Violence, Murder, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, and Racism

Moderate: Sexism, Gun violence, and Ableism

Minor: Vomit, Religious bigotry, and Animal cruelty

seedsofsunflowers's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Trafficking, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, and Death

Minor: Alcoholism, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, and Slavery

mmefish's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Gore, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Violence

tessahartman's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping

Moderate: Child abuse and Child death

archosaur's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child death and Kidnapping

monoliloquy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I have loved this book since I was too young to read it. I first read it when I was about ten and fell in love. I forget about this series ever so often and it's always great to reread. 

There are moments, in the way Pullman writes people--women, especially--that give me pause, but most of these moments are storytelling choices and specific misconceptions that Lyra has about the world. 

The writing in this book is enthralling, vivid, and doesn't let you go even for a moment. It's creative and the worldbuilding is beautiful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Gore, Violence, Religious bigotry, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, and Blood