His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman

This is going to be a big one. I am combining all three novels from His Dark Materials into one review, as they effectively make up one story. This is a long-awaited read for me, as I never read the books as a child and have heard so much about them. It all began when I accidentally bought The Book of Dust a few weeks ago, without realising that it follows on from the earlier trilogy. Hence, I went straight out to buy the first three.

Northern Lights, to begin with. This was definitely my favourite of all. I remember seeing The Golden Compass in the cinema many years ago, but could barely recall the plot except for the giant polar bears. What I can confirm is that I wish I had read the book so much earlier as I absolutely loved it! I will assume that a lot of people reading this will have already read the books as they did appear on a lot of school curriculums back in the day, but I will avoid all spoilers.

Prior to, and after reading the novel I read a number of other reviews to gather the general consensus on what people thought of the book(s). It struck me that many people appeared to be reading the novels very critically, and not taking into account the fact that they were intended as children's fantasy novels. Yes, Mrs Coulter seems to survive an extraordinary amount of times, and it is quite a coincidence that everyone who enters Cittàgazze seems to meet the same children, but if you read them for what they are, they are really brilliant stories and the critics need to just sit back and enjoy the magic! I think my favourite character has to be Iorek Byrnison, and who doesn't want a little Pantalaimon in their life?!

Secondly, The Subtle Knife. Although I loved all three books, I did miss the magic of Northern Lights once the setting focused more on Will's (our) Oxford and Cittàgazze, which also resembles the world as we know it. There was just something about the snow and the polar bears and the fur coats in the first novel that makes you want to curl up in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate. But I loved the integration of Will and the development of his character, and the ending (no spoilers) was a real tear jerker.

I wasn't sure about the integration of Mary as a character, on the whole. I see why she was important, particularly for The Amber Spyglass, but I did find her story less engaging. The third book in particular kept switching focus, between Will and Lyra, the angels Baruch and Balthamos, Lord Roke, Mrs Coulter, Mary... etc, etc. Just as you were hooked on one storyline, it would change to the perspective of another! At times I found this frustrating because there were just SO many characters and storylines to keep track of, but in hindsight this was a good narrative ploy from Pullman because it kept me gripped to find out more!

I don't want to spoil the ending, but let's just say my heart was left in pieces. I can see why it was necessary, and I do admire the fact that Pullman didn't just go for the standard 'happy' ending (although it wasn't exactly unhappy), but I was still left feeling pretty distraught. All that's left to do now is read The Book of Dust and see if the story is developed any more! (Fingers crossed) P.S. you can do a quiz to find out what your own daemon would be and I thoroughly recommend it. Mine would be a bengal cat because I'm a 'passionate and sensitive person'. Frankly, I would have preferred a puppy...