A review by kaylamolander
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

2.0

Meh. What a disappointment after the first one. I don't like all the heavy handed Bible stuff. I mean, did every character just forget that Lord Asriel killed a child??? It seems to me that Pullman is making the argument that because people have done terrible things in the name of the Christian God, therefore, we should go around killing kids because God would tell us that's wrong, so it must be the right thing to do. Even Satanists don't go that far. Also, way less action than the first one and

the way he referred to an 11-year-old girl as "Eve" and "the mother" just came across to me as creepy.

It kind of feels like a completely different series from the first book. New worlds (which are boring), science instead of magic, no armoured bears, barely any Lyra, no reading the alethiometer... What's going on? (Way too much, imo - daemons, angels, dark matter, Dust, spectors, the Cold War, bad guys searching for Will, Mrs. Coulter, climate change, and on and on and on...) I'll grudgingly start the third one, but if it just continues on this "God is evil" diatribe, I'll DNF it because that's boring and base af. It's like Pullman decided that his hatred of Christianity is more important than fully developed characters. Malone and Dr. Charles, all the new kids - all pointless caricatures. Re-litigating the original battle between God and Satan? Goodness gracious. I mean, I'm not even Christian and I'm eye rolling.