Reviews

Über den wilden Fluss by Philip Pullman

yazzer's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective fast-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? No

4.0

_mynameisdrew's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault

jamic3's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.25

barb_d's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

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

3.75

Certainly action-packed and fast moving. I was surprised at how involved I got, given that I thought the second and third books of the original trilogy dragged. This one dragged in places as well, but was consistently dynamic. Another strange thing is the tone - it reads like a children's book but has a few more mature episodes, some involving more mature language.

shimmery's review against another edition

3.0

A charming, adventurous read about two children who must save a special baby from dark forces to reunite her with her father. When the rains come and don’t stop, the city they live in disappears beneath water and they must escape on the small boat the book is named after.

I’ve never read any Pullman before so wasn’t familiar with the fantasy world but found it wasn’t difficult to fall in to. Though it starts out fairly familiar to the real world with just the daemons (shape shifting creatures that accompany every human and are part of their consciousness, I gathered) marking it as fantasy, as the story progresses we move from spies and convents to fairies and mysterious worlds where the children are invisible.

Like the water that floods it, this story changes shape, shifts over not quite discernible depths, is pulled along by strong currents and has mysteries beneath its surface. There were a lot of things introduced but not fully explored in this book — as this is only the first in a series I’m sure the ideas (namely the dust) will be developed in future instalments.

This was a departure from the kind of thing I normally read but a nice one. I have to say though, if I were Malcolm and Alice I’d be pretty peeved if I’d gone to all that effort to bring a baby back to her father (spoiler alert!) only for him to palm her off on someone else and disappear!

bubski_mcboo's review against another edition

4.0

If I return to my five-star reads and find that I have forgotten the story, I drop it down to a four and add it to my re-read shelf. This is one of those five-star reads.

magdie's review against another edition

adventurous

3.25

My main problem was the weird continuty and how the oace and timing was cery weird, especially

on the river

. It felt like an absolutely different book than His dark materials, even though I've read them a few years ago. Not too bad, read pretty quick and I didn't need to walk away from it but wasn't especially capturing and if I didn't have the 2nd part home I'm not sure if I'd read it, but I probably will. The characters were alright and I'm exc ted for Lyra that is able to do something else than cry quietly and poop at convenient times and hopeful she'll make it worth it. Malcolm was fine but I kinda can't believe he's 11, especially since Alice is 15?
Also, why is these so many useless references to sexual violence in this book for kids/young teens???
For slovak translation: sometimes it had incredibly bad sentence structure and felt rushed.

suzecluez's review against another edition

3.0

In a lot of ways this prequel reminded me of Rogue One for Star Wars fans. It adds background to a world readers know well, you learn a bit about characters you saw in His Dark Materials, but overall pretty unnecessary- we'll see if that changes if I read the next book in Dust series. I liked Malcolm and you see some of Lyra and Will in him.
The last 25% of the book was a bit confusing, random and disappointing to me. The "villain" also didn't make sense to me- it's hard to understand when someone just seems 100% "bad". Anyway, fun for fans of the His Dark Materials world, some adventure. Ending is not great.

Did anyone else note references to Germany pre WWII with League of Alexander?

Edit: upon reading the second book in the series I see why this one is crucial for what's to come.

arranjc's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.25

kris_hayward's review against another edition

3.0

Fun!!