Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Secret Commonwealth

I love Pullman's writing and this book was no exception. Despite its length it was not difficult to read and I really enjoyed where the story is going. But I don't think it engaged me in the same way as La Belle Sauvage.

The Secret Commonwealth covers so much ground (geographically and politically, as well as in terms of self discovery). But it has the tendency to feel a little peril-adjacent. For a good chunk of the book the real threat rarely hits the protagonists themselves, and where there is drama it can resolve surprisingly quickly. This very much seems to suffer from being mid-trilogy and it sometimes edges into scene-setting over plot; albeit incredibly interesting and beautifully written scene-setting.

That said, for the last 100 pages or so I was absolutely riveted, there was tension, drama and a hell of a lot of emotion. Some revelations about people with no dæmons intrigued me and I can't wait to read the last installment. But I do feel like I'm not significantly wiser about what's going on than I was at the start, so the third book has an awful lot of gaps to fill.

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amerikinz14's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

The main conflict between Lyra and Pan is alright but there were moments where their arguments seemed too harsh. Yes, coming from the end of “The Amber Spyglass”, their relationship is strained. In the original HDM trilogy, I enjoyed Lyra and Pan’s camaraderie and their interactions were one of my favorite aspects. While in “The Secret Commonwealth”, they spend a good portion of the book either arguing with or being separated from each other. It fits the story but it isn’t how I envisioned the characters grown up.

The characters from “La Belle Sauvage” get re-introduced (since TSC takes place when Lyra is 20 years old; years after HDM ends) and I REALLY enjoyed that aspect! Pullman blended the familiar and new characters well.

The plot itself is somewhat confusing. Since the audiobook is 20 hours long, I found myself tuning in and out (and I sped up the narration) which led to some details being lost. I got the gist of it as the book progressed but I think the author tried to cram a lot into the book (which is basically 640 pages), spending time on flushing out less important details. And knowing there will eventually be a third book is very interesting!

Still docking points for the “Unabridged” audiobook version having some vulgar language and a few triggers.

Overall, I like “The Book of Dust”. I prefer the stories of “His Dark Materials” but “The Book of Dust” fits well as a continuation!

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lucecanon's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

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balfies's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.75

The HBO His Dark Materials finale had got me down so bad that I purchased and read this 700 page tome in a day. I read the first of the Book of Dust trilogy a few years ago and wasn't taken by it, but this was a more compelling read.

Feels more akin to Pullman's Sally Lockhart series than the rest of His Dark Materials - it is a balancing act between a magical spy thriller and a philosophical argument for the necessity of imagination and folklore. Also they let Lyra drop the f bomb.

Altogether enjoyed it a lot more, and how it expands on the ineffable relationship we have to our souls. Also every ten pages Lyra thinks about Will and misses him and wants to be more like him and that was DEVASTATING.

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evelphysicist's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-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

3.25

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mariebrunelm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

What a bleak, bleak book. Contrary to La Belle Sauvage, this one takes place 8 years after the events in His Dark Materials. We are reunited with Lyra, now a young woman at university. Unfortunately, after what she and her dæmon went through, their relationship has never been the same. And it's truly heartbreaking. Yes, there is a whole story that is part spy thriller, part fantastical mystery, but what I felt most of all was Lyra and Pan's deep, deep sadness.
If you enjoyed La Belle Sauvage, you'll probably enjoy this one as well! Sadly for me, the elements I hadn't enjoyed in LBS were back here. I kept reading because I wanted to know where the author was taking his world, given that he promised us more about Dust, but I felt rather frustrated at the end. Yes, His Dark Materials isn't a happy story, but there are many lights in the darkness, and I still love this series (even though no matter how many times I read it, I never understand the last volume). Here I thought it was mostly gloomy and hopeless, which didn't particularly cheer me up, go figure.

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labeanorita's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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crufts's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Arghh! What a frustrating book... Firstly, it basically ends on an unfinished cliffhanger. Secondly, it started off superbly only to divebomb at the end.

The Secret Commonwealth is the second book in this trilogy by Phillip Pullman, following La Belle Sauvage, which I reviewed here.

Twenty years after the events of the first book, our previous protagonist Malcolm Polstead is now 31 years old and a college professor. Our deuteragonist Alice has also grown up and gone to work at the college. But most of the book instead follows Lyra, who is no longer the baby that Malcolm and Alice rescued, but a 20-year-old college scholar.

Having experienced the events of the His Dark Materials trilogy in her youth and sworn against the religious Magisterium, Lyra has grown into a cynical, skeptical adult. Without religion, she feels like the universe is cold, uncaring and meaningless - the "random jostling of atoms". Her romantic forays have turned into dead ends and her studies with the aleithiometer are a struggle. She even starts to believe a popular author's thesis that dæmons are "just imaginary".
Alienated by this cynical Lyra, her dæmon Pantalaimon begins to argue with her. The passages about their conflict are some of the best in the book: they not only reveal Pan and Lyra's feelings but also the philosophical discussions that we love to see in a Pullman novel. The audiobook narrator's performance elevates these sections even further.
Lyra's troubles continue when she discovers that the Magisterium knows about her existence at the college, and they are still trying to hunt her down. This made for a great inciting incident. And the bad guys involved are such slimy bastards, like

the new head of the college

, that I was seething on Lyra's behalf.

The novel continued on strongly until, bizarrely, Lyra and

Malcolm

develop a mutual unspoken crush on eachother. Putting their difference of

age

aside, I just didn't see the point of this mutual crush since it doesn't go anywhere. I would have understood it if it was used to show that

Lyra is still pining after Will (because Malcolm has parallels to Will), but ultimately realizes she has to move on and "build the Republic of Heaven where she is"

. But that's not what happened - the two are separated at a certain point in the story and that's it. No conclusion.

The other bizarre plot event was the attempted

sexual assault

on Lyra. This came off as really weird and inappropriate.

Most annoyingly, the ending of this book feels just as incomplete as the previous one. It's very much a "To Be Continued". For a book that's just under 700 pages, you would expect to have accomplished some kind of conclusion in that time, but no. This problem colours the entire ending of the book, which has Lyra still investigating secrets in an anticlimactic fashion rather than engaging in a showdown or final conflict.

Overall, I did enjoy the book and was interested to know what would happen next, but these issues definitely marred the narrative.

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