It's about wrong and less wrong. Bad and less bad.

Rating: 3.5 stars

I absolutely love the His Dark Materials series, and I re-read them this year and loved them even more than I did before, so I knew I had to pick up La Belle Sauvage. I finally managed to get a copy from the library (I'm still 55th in the queue for The Secret Commonwealth though) and while I did really enjoy it, I think my experience was a little ruined by being totally over-hyped for it. Everyone kept telling me it was the best book ever and while it did really, really hold up, it wasn't as good in my opinion as some of the HDM books.

Saying that, I loved Malcolm and Alice and I could read a hundred stories about those two. I thought they were powerfully written and just as lovable as Lyra and Will, and it was sweet to see baby Lyra. I liked finding out how, exactly, she ended up at Jordan College too. This book lost points for me because in places it got... weird? But without much context or explanation. Twice, the book delved into faery territory and then out again and unless I missed something crucial, this made absolutely no sense to me as part of the narrative whereas I was so much more invested in Malcolm and Alice's real-world struggle to reach safety.