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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
This was by far the worst Narnia book so far, and it brought to an extreme many of the problems that plague the series as a whole. Biggest of all, there is some pretty overt racism in this book. The bad guys are from what is obviously an Arab-equivalent country, and every male character of that descent in the story is greedy, moral-less, and violent. This is put in constant contrast to the all-white Narnians, who are seamlessly all honorable and Aslan's chosen people. There's even a line about post-slavery work ethic that boggled my mind in the probable parallel Lewis was making to mid-50s America. Additionally, the story continues to promote sexism and treats any semi-strong female character as a huge exception to the norm.
Those things are enough to warrant a 1-star review, but to make matters even worse, the story was just boring. Aslan's parts were entertaining as always, but again a lot of the important parts of the plot were explained post-occurrence in excruciatingly long detail, and in the most meandering of ways in an attempt to make the conversations more realistic. That's cool, but no reader really wants a page long side-track of irrelevant detail as the narrator tries to get to his/her points (and this happens repeatedly). None of the characters were particularly intriguing, they were all very stereotypical and shallow, and the climax of the book lacked any real intrigue as, similar to "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", the actually action sequence isn't seen on screen, it's just narrated by bystanders during or after.
Overall, this was a pretty mind-numbing waste of time to read. I'm hoping "The Magician's Nephew" (which seems to be some people's favorite) and "The Last Battle" (the grand conclusion to the series) make themselves worth the time.
Those things are enough to warrant a 1-star review, but to make matters even worse, the story was just boring. Aslan's parts were entertaining as always, but again a lot of the important parts of the plot were explained post-occurrence in excruciatingly long detail, and in the most meandering of ways in an attempt to make the conversations more realistic. That's cool, but no reader really wants a page long side-track of irrelevant detail as the narrator tries to get to his/her points (and this happens repeatedly). None of the characters were particularly intriguing, they were all very stereotypical and shallow, and the climax of the book lacked any real intrigue as, similar to "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", the actually action sequence isn't seen on screen, it's just narrated by bystanders during or after.
Overall, this was a pretty mind-numbing waste of time to read. I'm hoping "The Magician's Nephew" (which seems to be some people's favorite) and "The Last Battle" (the grand conclusion to the series) make themselves worth the time.
This one felt like a bite-sized epic with lots of adventure and intrigue! Overall I enjoyed the plot, but I do have some conflicting feelings on the way C.S. Lewis chose to portray the Calormen. I’ve seen some debate in other reviews on this topic and definitely think I would need to spend more time digging into other perspectives and commentary from the author (if it exists) to determine the intention behind that choice especially in the context of when this book was written.
Sadly, the most overtly racist in the series, with it's depictions of the Caloromenes as evil dark-faced Muslims (in essence). It is a fact that has to be overlooked (not necessarily excused) in order to get the beauty of the adventure story and, once again, Aslan's intervening on behalf of the ones in need of salvation.
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Not the best in the series so far, but still pretty good in its own right.
this was kinda boring and uuuuh racist so this one is a no from me
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is definitely my least favourite in the series. I’m sorry but I genuinely just didn’t care for any of the characters and the plot lacked interest. It was like every time I tried to get into it, I got tired or bored. It was nice to see some cameos from the Pevensies but that was really the only somewhat enjoyable part of this book.