“Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other.”

Rating: 3 stars

I didn't like Subtle Knife as much as I loved Northern Lights, but on the flipside I also didn't hate it half as much as I did the first time that I read it. I've settled in a sort of middle ground where I like it a lot more than I did once, partly I think because I'm older and I can grasp the more complex themes of the book a little more clearly, but I still much, much prefer the first novel. At the beginning of Subtle Knife, Pullman says that it's set in our world, and to some extent I think that's why I always find it disappointing. I know lots about our world, I find our world to often be boring (that's why I read fantasy, after all) so to go from Lyra's world with a rich tapestry of daemons and magic and talking bears to our plain-ass regular world is kind of a bummer.

But it is a good book, the characters are still beautifully developed and Pullman does create an interesting and authentic feeling multiverse idea, which is not always easy to pull off, and I will definitely finish out the trilogy as I don't really remember much at all of Amber Spyglass.