4/5 stars
One of the better books in the series, and certainly the most adult in terms of content. Contains a number of pretty clear parallels with the real-world events of the last few years, from the refugee crisis to dodgy, divisive politics – as well as almost certainly not child-friendly descriptions of how men leer at young women, and even a brutal attempted rape.
There are some more suspect elements too, from stereotypical portrayals of non-English people and cultures (even the Welsh are all miners, and people from the Middle East all seem to be either downtrodden victims of oppression or oppressors, with little in between) to some familiar characters behaving in ways that seem unlikely based on past behaviour in previous books.
There’s a fair bit of quite simplistic philosophising as well, but of a rather more pretentious kind than the straight-up Atheism 101 of The Amber Spyglass, which again suddenly pulls you back into realising this is still a book for kids / teens.
This shouldn’t be a surprise – of *course* it’s a kids book – but tonally it makes the whole feel inconsistent, as Pullman evidently has aspirations for this to appeal to an older audience – and to really *say* something, especially in the latter parts – but can’t quite break out if the writing for kids style that nudges him into a less complex view of the world.
Still decent, though.