A review by trin
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

3.0

Beautiful, beautiful writing, but suffers rather from prequelitis -- one knows going in exactly where Lyra is going to ultimately end up. Plotwise, this book is also hindered by being in the majority a journey story -- and then, and then -- and moreover, surprisingly unclear in its worldbuilding and character motivations.

Spoiler

Bonneville, the main -- non-institutional -- villain is fascinating, and intensely, often viscerally frightening; his pursuit of Malcolm and Alice is very Night of the Hunter, which I adore. But it's never clear why he's after them or what he wants with Lyra.

I'm sure much of this will become more apparent in the next volume, but in a way, Pullman gives the reader frustratingly little for a novel of 400+ pages.

But oh, the writing, the world. Daemons.