Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - La comunidad secreta

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

La comunidad secreta by Philip Pullman

129 reviews

elenaluisa's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

saltyy_sarah's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

isla8's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense 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: Complicated

Fantastic second part to the Book of Dust trilogy. Explores the main character, Lyra, and her life into adulthood facing new and intriguing challenges and adventures. Darker than the other books in the series. The book is left on a cliffhanger… ready to get my teeth into the third book in the trilogy when it’s released!

Content Warnings

melonpea's review against another edition

2.75

adventurous challenging sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

saturdayslaughter's review against another edition

2.75

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Eh. Im not deeply slighted at this turn for Lyra, I just think the whole thing was pretty messy. It just made me wonder what Mr. Pullman was thinking a lot. But there was plenty of compelling things going on I guess.

The thesis it is that people need more wonder at the world and less cold detachment, and sure that works, it just felt weirdly aggressive sometimes. It was so interesting watching that thread. He also made some really weird tonal choices I think, like (vague minor spoilers)

there’s a random horrific naval tragedy and later an unnecessary attempted rape.

What compelled him to write this? It’s just so meandering, I feel like he loves this world and didn’t streamline the story enough in favor of exploring everything he can.

I want to know if the coming romance between

Malcom and Lyra

is popular with fans, I think it adds basically nothing and is kind of uncomfortable.

I want to go read an essay dissecting this novel, there’s so much disconnected stuff going on. Was interested in the development of some of the plot and characters, for the most part I was just kind of along for the ride, feeling out how I felt about a story that largely hit me with mixed feelings— especially in the second half.

Also, the whole treatment of the the niqab Lyra briefly wears was just really uncomfortable. Plenty of imagery throughout had a lot of orientalism vibes, I think he probably fumbled plenty of other stuff that was less obvious to me. I’d also like to read dissections of that.

Content Warnings

sarahbliss's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark mysterious 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: Yes

Content Warnings

zaidzu's review against another edition

3.25

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

His Dark Materials is one of my absolute favorite book series. That being said, I was really disappointed in this book. Book of Dust 1 was enjoyable enough, different from HDM but still had enough of the mysterious adventurous feeling I’ve come to associate with these works. However, book 2 just plummets into so much unnecessary territory, while accomplishing very little plot-wise. I know this trilogy was originally one giant book, so in that context the second book would have maybe worked better if you could just continue reading right away, but it’s still too drawn out. I didn’t really get a sense of that “Lyra on an adventure” feeling I love until literally the very end of the book. Also,

there a scene where Lyra is raped

and that completely ruined any shred of hope I had for this book/series. Completely unnecessary and felt like a weak attempt to write something more “adult”. Not to mention the

weird situation of Malcom having feelings for Lyra when he is 10 years older than her and she is still rather young.

Icky. Curious to see how Will is going to be squeezed into the story (if at all at this point). Maybe the third book will be better, but this one really bummed me out.

Content Warnings