Take a photo of a barcode or cover
radisyn 's review for:
The Secret Commonwealth
by Philip Pullman
I... really wanted to enjoy this book but as many have said it is rambling, convoluted, with many contrived and unnecessary asides. I was excited reading it for maybe the first third, and then experienced a creeping sense of dread as I realized the author doesn't seem to know where he's going with his many ideas, so gets lost in a labyrinth of briefly introduced characters and side plots. I struggle to imagine how all these things could be satisfactorily tied together, and the book even seems to reference this itself at one point towards the end (when Malcolm is detailing the romantic poem but this brief burst of apparent self-awareness doesn't justify it tbh.
In addition, as many have noted, it feels like a totally nonsensical departure from the Lyra we knew in HDM *and* the Malcolm we knew in LBS. I know they were young in their respective stories, and of course we change as we grow up, but I felt like they were completely different characters for no discernible reason at all, and the book has no interest in really explaining why they have changed. The story hand waves away so many things that I became increasingly frustrated as I read along.
Not to mention Malcolm's creepy romantic fixation on Lyra and her sudden interest in him out of nowhere??? Why on earth is the story so clumsily trying to make this a thing when it makes no sense and is an upsetting distortion of what could be a really lovely dynamic as established in LBS? It just. doesn't make sense for the characters, it feels forced and unnecessary to say the least. I hope Pullman thinks better of trying to set that up because it is beyond confusing.
I want to imagine that Pullman will manage to bring it all together in the 3rd installment but if so he still really messed up by making this one so shoddily constructed that I honestly am not sure I will even read the next one since I fear I don't trust him as a storyteller anymore. A real fall from grace in a myriad of ways from the author of one of the strongest series ever written imho. I hope I'm wrong and The Rose Field knocks it out of the park but the seams were so very visible in this book, the themes so jumbled and multitudinous, that it lost all sense of overall purpose. Very disappointing indeed.
In addition, as many have noted, it feels like a totally nonsensical departure from the Lyra we knew in HDM *and* the Malcolm we knew in LBS. I know they were young in their respective stories, and of course we change as we grow up, but I felt like they were completely different characters for no discernible reason at all, and the book has no interest in really explaining why they have changed. The story hand waves away so many things that I became increasingly frustrated as I read along.
Not to mention Malcolm's creepy romantic fixation on Lyra and her sudden interest in him out of nowhere??? Why on earth is the story so clumsily trying to make this a thing when it makes no sense and is an upsetting distortion of what could be a really lovely dynamic as established in LBS? It just. doesn't make sense for the characters, it feels forced and unnecessary to say the least. I hope Pullman thinks better of trying to set that up because it is beyond confusing.
I want to imagine that Pullman will manage to bring it all together in the 3rd installment but if so he still really messed up by making this one so shoddily constructed that I honestly am not sure I will even read the next one since I fear I don't trust him as a storyteller anymore. A real fall from grace in a myriad of ways from the author of one of the strongest series ever written imho. I hope I'm wrong and The Rose Field knocks it out of the park but the seams were so very visible in this book, the themes so jumbled and multitudinous, that it lost all sense of overall purpose. Very disappointing indeed.