Reviews - The Chronicles of Narnia

1.66k reviews for:

The Chronicles of Narnia

C.S. Lewis

4.16 AVERAGE

andieandink's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted

melinasiamalekas's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense 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: No

I found it very slow starting with The Boy and His Horse until the very end. However, the last paragraph in the last book had a major twist in it and actually made me say holy crap.

larilovesbooks's review against another edition

3.5

funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

rayhanalam's review against another edition

3.0

I should mention first that I am past the age where I would enjoy FairyTales narrated in a sing-song way. As a kid, I watched The Chronicles of Narnia film series an unhealthy amount of time. I was a big fan. Aslan ( The Lion) was the coolest thing ever—fixing everything with a ground-shaking roar. That was mainly the reason why I started reading the books. And I was gravely disappointed.

C.S Lewis' tone is very condescending and boomer-ish

This particular line was incredibly annoying -

"Things like Do Not Steal were, I think, hammered into boys’ heads a good deal harder in those days than they are now"

"Those days were better than now" is thrown at your face at every page.

For a book, which' intended audiences are kids, the subtexts were rather disturbing. No matter what, Humans Are Bad is what Lewis wants to establish. Uncle Andrew ( A character from the book) gave the most quintessential response when he saw a lion singing and talking and at the end Aslan was literally saying how "Sons of adam and daughters of eve" shut themselves off of anything that would do them good, in response to uncle Andrew convincing himself that the animals aren't talking but rather it's his imagination and the animals are actually roaring and snarling. And I needn't mention how much religion is shoved in these books. And I googled to found out that CS Lewis upheld a largely orthodox anglican theology. He was apologist.

If not for the sake of nostalgia I would have rate these books 1/5.

Truly, disappointed