A review by wolfthorn
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

adventurous mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

 I have to say that it's not the most exciting book to start off with. It's really slow and nothing happens for about half of the book. It definitely got better once the flood appeared, there was more excitement after that point.  Just a shame that it took so long to get to it!  There were some parts towards the end that didn't make a lot of sense:
the island with the odd lady, and the garden
.  I'm not sure if they'd have made more sense if I'd read the full series.  I did like
the river god
though, that was nicely done.  

There's also some parts which I have found to be rather unsuitable for a children's/YA book. There's two mentions of paedophilia, two different characters have a known attraction to young children, one for girls and one for boys. The main character is an eleven year old boy and there's a discussion about using him as bait in order to blackmail the relevant character! There's also a vague sex scene, although it's more along the lines of 'these two characters are having sex' rather than anything graphic. That all makes for rather uncomfortable reading. However, the attempted rape was very disconcerting.  It's a kids book!  
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