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The Secret Commonwealth Broods and Meanders and Dabbles in Casual White Supremacy

The Secret Commonwealth by Phillip Pullman

by 7 Comments

**Spoilers for His Dark Materials trilogy and The Book of Dust trilogy below** A lot happens in this book, and nothing happens. Which was predictable. The second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy is also a filler, but at least then they get the stupid knife. A Secret Commonwealth feels like a million pages of setting up, introducing us to characters that will probably be important, moving them to where the next war is going to break, explaining their motivations. It’s basically a very […]

I can see the future, it’s a real dark place

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

by 2 Comments

Oh, how I loved the first book in this trilogy (La Belle Sauvage)! It was one of my favorite books of 2018, and I had such high hopes for The Secret Commonwealth. Maybe, had my expectations been a little lower, I would have enjoyed this more. Sadly, The Secret Commonwealth ended up being rather disappointing. The Secret Commonwealth starts with Lyra Silvertongue, now in her early 20s, as a student St. Sophia’s College in Oxford. We also learn in the first part of the book […]

“You’re in a world full of color and you want to see it in black and white.”

The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust, #2) by Philip Pullman

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Firstly, this was very compelling. I haven’t spent really any time wondering what happened to Lyra since we last left her, if I’m being honest (I liked that nebulous hopefulness at the end of Amber Spyglass that let you assume she would do the work of building the Republic of Heaven on earth, that she would eventually find love that would let her move on from Will, etc.). But as soon as she and Pan appeared on the page, I realized that I had missed them and […]

A strange little prelude of a book.

La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, #1) by Philip Pullman

by 2 Comments

I liked this! It was different than I was expecting. I’m almost more excited for the second two books than I was for this one, though. I remember being puzzled when this book series was announced. What more could there possibly be of this story to tell? And also, it was going to be a prequel AND a sequel series, somehow. It just felt bizarre to me, so I shrugged in my mind and then moved on with my life. Well, it all makes sense […]

The One I’ve Been Waiting For

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For most of CBR10, I’ve been in a real reading rut. While I’ve read plenty of books I liked, there have been only a few that met my criteria for The Kind of Book I Love to Read: The story is engrossing: I have to feel like I can’t put it down. It’s not just engrossing, but also evokes specific emotions: I love a book that makes me feel happy or excited, or that awakens my curiosity or makes me want to learn something new. […]

I want a daemon!

by 4 Comments

I loved His Dark Materials trilogy so I was very excited when I realized that Philip Pullman had a new novel out.  I was a little bit less sure if I necessarily wanted a new novel in the same universe but was definitely willing to give it a shot. As much as I love Harry Potter,  I would at this point prefer to get another murder mystery from J.K. Rowling than another tie in to Hogwarts and that universe.  As a result, I wasn’t sure […]



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