The Golden Enclaves

 

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This is it. This is the one I’ve been waiting to read. A return to the most sinister school in fictional history. It came out months ago, but I had a pile already living rent-free on my bedside table that needed to slowly be evicted one by one. And now I have made it to the thrilling conclusion to Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series: The Golden Enclaves.

Galadriel Higgins is alive. Not only did she survive to graduate from the deadly Scholomance, she survived her graduating class’ plan to unhinge the school completely and send it tumbling into the void forever. But right at the last minute, Orion pushed her out and went back in. And now El is haunted by grief, rage, and despair. But nothing lasts forever. El is quickly asked to save the London enclave from a maw-mouth and so begins the start of the rest of her life. And in a wickedly ironic move, it begins with her having to find a way back into the Scholomance!

Like any middle book, The Last Graduate was compelling fun, but then left a lot of questions towards the end. Questions that now get answered with horrific, but satisfying conclusions. After a slow start, the book quickly builds momentum and the dramatic events are powered through with the force of a bulldozer breaking the land-speed record. Novik’s world of magic gets wider and much darker as the truth behind enclaves is shockingly revealed: the dark side of humanity given great power and becoming manifest, which brings a lovely contrast to the books title and inviting cover. 

El’s character arc becomes complete, though not in the way she or any of her readers expected, and it’s as happy an ending as can come from years of trauma, repression, isolation, and more recently, post-traumatic stress disorder. 

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The Golden Enlcaves is a fun, dark, twisted, and rollicking close to an unique and exciting trilogy, exploring themes of the dangers of human desire, desperation, and want and indentifying just how far some people will go to achieve their goals and justify their actions. It’s interesting because even though there are clear villains and very real evil sorceresses, the real horror and villain is human nature. 

It’s exciting, compelling, and a perfect end to a delightfully different and original romp into a new world of magic. For fantasy lovers, I would absolutely recommend The Scholomance series. 

Author: Naomi Novik, 2022

Published: Del Rey, London. An imprint of Penguin Random House UK, 2022

The Book Thief

 

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Books are journeys. Stories are journeys. The basic narratives that we tell day-to-day are some sort of journey. It’s interesting, while most books take the reader on a narrative journey along with its characters, there are some that do that while simultaneously taking them on an emotional journey. I’ve just closed the cover on a book that I hadn’t thought about for years, decided to reread, and have been deeply thinking about nothing else for the past week: Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. 

Told from the perspective of Death, the books tells the story of ten year-old Liesel Meminger who goes to live with foster parents in Munich in the midst of WWII. Before entering this new family and life she picks up a book, accidentally left half hidden in the snow. This simple act sparks a great love of books, words, and the odd bit of thievery. As her foster father teaches her to read, Liesel begins stealing books wherever they are to be found: Nazi bonfires, abandoned in rivers, and even in the Mayor’s wife's library. And soon the power of words is guiding Liesel through her struggles of adolescent life in a war-torn Germany. 

I remember really loving this book when I first read it as a 19/20 year old. I mean really loving it. And it’s funny, when I picked it up a decade later and started rereading it, I was turned off by the prose. I found it clichéd and pretentious, so much so that I could almost taste the bittersweet metallic tang that made me cringe. I thought I'd just grown out of it, my tastes having evolved since then. I’m a stubborn reader so I persevered because, ‘I’ve started now, I may as well finish.’ And I mentioned my feelings to my blind, literary-loving grandmother who then made me read a few sentences that I found cringing out loud. They sounded completely different, so much better. And I realised that there is something to the voice that reads in your head and the voice that reads out loud. If I listened to The Book Thief, I would probably fall in love with it all over again. 

In a way I have decided that this is a favourite that will remain on the shelf, because it made me go through this real emotional and philosophical journey about whether or not I thought it a good book. 

It’s a fucking great book! 

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Zusak’s story is simple; it’s the way in which he uses sensory descriptions like colour, taste, and smell to describe the world and characters that makes this book amazing. It’s engaging from the very first page, hugely accessible and compelling, before you know it you’ve gone through several chapters. What Zusak does with words is actually truly incredible, chronicling a simple life, but making it rich and aromatic through a few sensory sentences and creating a reading experience that is captivating and hugely pleasurable. In every free moment I had, my nose was buried in this book. 

Author: Markus Zusak, 2005

Published: Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited, 2005. 

Longevity: The Book Thief was adapted into a film of the same name in 2013.

La Belle Sauvage

 

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One silver lining to being sick is having the time to sit and have unlimited hours of reading. In this modern world were there is so much to do and so much media to consume, the magic and voyeuristic luxury of getting lost in another world is often hard to accomplish. Not when you’re on the slow mend from Covid! For 5 days I suffered from a brain fog so thick no written word could penetrate it, but now the fog is clearing and while I’m sill on the mend, I have the blessed relief of being able to curl up and get entirely immersed in a different world. In record time, I have just closed the cover of La Belle Sauvage, the first instalment in Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust series, a prequel to His Dark Materials.

The book follows unlikely hero Malcolm Polstead, a boy working in his parents’ tavern and spending his free time playing with his daemon and sailing his beloved canoe, La Belle Sauvage. One day, Malcolm’s quiet life is upended when he spies a strange man drop a strange something and then taken away by some sinister figures. Not long after that, a baby girl named Lyra is brought to the oratory near the tavern and Malcolm finds himself strongly bound to her. More mysteries pop up concerning the strange man, a secret message, and the baby, and soon a disaster occurs that forces Malcolm to act beyond his years as tries to get Lyra back to her father while evading some sinister pursuers. 

I can’t express it in words, but there is something just so compelling about Pullman’s writing. I found myself absolutely steamrolling through His Dark Materials and this series is exactly the same. The world is so rich and fully fleshed-out, the prose so simple and embracing that hours seem to go by in a single blink! That’s the power of Pullman.

Unlike The Northern Lights and the subsequent books, La Belle Sauvage is definitely intended for a more mature audience. Still technically YA fiction the more dramatic and sinister parts of the story are circled by implications of adult dangers such as sexual violence and emotional trauma. The excitement of the book comes from its being a delightful mixture of genres: it begins as an innocent adventure story with the child protagonists out on a hero’s quest, but quickly escalates into a sort of noir-spy-thriller-chase-story. At the same time, it’s a coming-of-age tale with Malcolm being thrust into maturity almost violently. 

Image credit: philip-pullman.com

Even though, from an YA-adventure-novel point of view, not a lot of exiting external events happen, the story itself is so compelling in the suspense and anxiety and hope that it creates that you find yourself flicking through pages as fast as if a great, exciting battle were taking place. And in true Pullman fashion, we are left on a cliff-hanger that has me hankering to rush out and buy the next instalment. 

Filled with action, adventure, suspense, and even a little romance La Belle Sauvage is a great introductory novel to what promises to be an exciting series. 

Author: Philip Pullman, 2017

Published: David Fickling Books (London), 2017

La Belle Sauvage is the first instalment in Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust trilogy, a prequel series to His Dark Materials. 

The Last Graduate

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 It should come as no surprise that as soon as lockdown restrictions were lifted in Sydney, on the first day off that I had, I went out and splurged on new D&D dice and books! I’d been waiting, somewhat impatiently, for the next instalment in Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series and, no joke, squealed with delight when I spotted in on the shelf in my local bookstore. Now having closed the cover on it, I’m dying to know what happens next!

It’s El’s final year in the Scholomance and since her questionable yet heroic escapades of the previous semester it seems that the school has decided to really cut out her work for her. But an increased workload, a suspicious timetable, and a class filled with freshmen rather than friends, soon becomes the least of her worries. As the deadly graduation day looms nearer, El and her friends work on a strategy to get out safely, but it seems the school has other plans. Soon El realises that the game’s been changed and in order to survive, she’ll have to break all the rules. 

By the end of A Deadly Education there was definitely the exhilarated feels of an unlikely heroine rising, reluctant/complicated romance story in the works. And while The Last Graduate does pick up where we left off, it’s a slow and patient build back to those excited and climactic thrills that ended the first book. 

In this story we get a little more sense of the Scholomance as a sort-of-sentient being with an agenda and some warped sense of feeling and it’s quite interesting to watch our heroine begin to actually understand it, even feel for it. 

What I realised I love about these books, and Novik’s style generally, is that her stories are not so much narrative-driven, but character driven. From an action perspective, nothing much happens in The Last Graduate; or the pace of the book is so tempered that it feels like nothing is happening. This is absolutely not the case though. Through El’s narration we get this deep and intimate understanding of her and her world as well as the strange journey that she’s on. What I particularly liked in this book is how Novik begins on a recognisable narrative quest trajectory and then completely derails us with multiple bumps and kinks that throw the train completely off its tracks. By the time the Big Showdown takes shape, it’s so far removed from what we expected at the beginning that we’re just now holding on for dear life to a handrail. It’s an excellent ride though. 

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The end may leave us screaming, but the journey is great and what’s really lovely about this books is the growth of all the characters and the way their own arcs form a bit of a strange shape. There are absolutely no straight lines in a Novik novel and you’d think I’d realise that by now, but she continues to throw me every wonderful spectacular time!

Author: Naomi Novik, 2021

Published: Del Rey, Penguin Random House, 2021

The Last Graduate is the second book in Novik's Scholomance series

A Deadly Education

 

Image credit: Penguin Books Australia

Right now we are living in such crazy times and it can very hard to find pockets of joy. But believe me, they are still out there. Like the unexpected joy that comes from finding a new author name that cements itself amidst your group of favourites. When I read Uprooted, I was impressed and enjoyed the book, but hadn’t considered Naomi Novik a favourite author. And then, randomly one day while I was in a bookshop, I saw a new one from her and was compelled to get it. Having just closed the cover on it, I can now say that I have experienced that surprising and enjoyable realisation that I have a new favourite author. 

A Deadly Education is the first book in Novik’s planned Scholomance series and introduces readers to the character of Galadriel (El) Higgins, an antisocial loner trying to make her way through magic school. While school is hard for everyone, for the young wizards attending the Scholomance, it’s worse as there are no teachers, no holidays, just a semi-sentient school that’s designed to cull its inhabitants. There are mals and monsters around ever corner, and only the strongest, smartest, or luckiest come out alive. But while El has no friends on her side, she does have the advantage of having a power so intense that she can level mountains and wipe out millions. As she could easily accidentally kill all her fellow students, El tries her hardest to play by the book, avoiding her natural affinity for destruction, and not showing off her power unless she absolutely must.

It’s a little bit like Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games, with the school being the big bad that is out to kill everyone. A great coming-of-age narrative about the social educations of school rather than just the academic, A Deadly Education takes the middle-school magic subgenre and completely flips it on its head. Our protagonist is an anti-heroine whose brash and unfriendly attitudes keep her segregated from any cliques, but brandish her with the courage to point out the social injustices and toxic social attitudes that work within the school and the wider world. Bitter by nature, but certainly not evil (at least actively trying not to be) El is a fresh and intriguing heroine that beautifully dissects the traditional dichotomy of good and evil and reveals it to be much more grey than black and white. 

In fact Novik takes many of the traditional genre tropes and character templates and completely turns them inside out (sometimes literally), making for an engaging and fascinating read experience, as it derails the reading route that the genre comes with pre-mapped. 

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There is action, drama, and suspense around every corner and Novik’s prose reads with a great sense of nonchalance and a sauntering pace: even the more dramatic moments of characters being basically eaten alive are written in a way that perfectly describes what’s happening without embellishing or creating an adrenalin rush within the reader. The narrative is constantly in a state of excitement flux and cool-down, a perfect balance that makes the reading experience consistent whilst allowing the reader to see the bigger story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am most certainly intrigued to see what will happen next!

Author: Naomi Novik, 2020

Published: Del Rey, a part of Penguin Random House UK.

Chronicle: A Deadly Education is the first book in Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series.

The High King

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And so we close the cover on yet another classic children’s fantasy adventure that I cannot believe it has taken me this long to discover. After the long and twisting tales of Drizzt Do’Urden in R.A. Salvator’s long-winded trilogy, I was keen to get back to something simple, exciting, and easy to read. This week I finished Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain, with the fifth book, The High King.

The final book in the series, The High King chronicles the ultimate adventure for Taran the Assistant Pig Keeper and his various companions as they rally together under the banner of Prince Gwydion to destroy Arawn the Death-Lord once and for all, when the wicked master of Annuvin steals the legendary sword Dyrnwyn. Facing many perils on their journey north, Taran and his companions must face ultimate sacrifices, tests of character, and more if they are to rid Prydain of Arawn’s evil once and for all.

A perfect way to end a truly remarkable series, The High King expertly ties off all of the central characters’ emotional journeys. Taran, of course, completes his course from boyhood to manhood, both physically and emotionally, and it’s really lovely to see his accrued wisdom play crucial roles in the narrative’s development. But what’s really lovely is that everyone; Eilonwy, Gurgi, Fflewdur etc., all have their physical and emotional stories centred on at some point or other in the book, making it a most delightfully balanced out chronicle.

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The fast-paced action and excitement is still here aplenty, with Alexander’s crisp and clean prose painting a perfect picture of the world without getting readers bogged down in exposition, as well as the drama and gravitas of various scenes being just as poignant and moving as if they had poetic and provocative chapters devoted to them. Alexander is a real advocate of showing rather than telling, which really does work well for a series such as this, which makes it a truly wonderful and underappreciated children’s series.

The Chronicles of Prydain stands strongly in the company of Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials, and the Deltora Quest series and anyone who has a penchant for these types of reads would benefit from adding it to their library!

Author: Lloyd Alexander, 1968

Published: Holt, Reinhart & Winston. Pictured edition published in 2006 by Usborne Publishing Ltd.

The High King is the fifth and final book in Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain series.

Taran Wanderer

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There are many risks that come with writing a series and then having a book that is simply about the central protagonist wandering the wilds trying to ‘find themselves’; the biggest being that it can prove how strong and likeable the protagonist is. In one of my all-time favourite series, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, the final book focuses on Titus Grown wandering away from his ancestral home and the misadventures he has on the road, and honestly it is one of the most boring books to read because it shows that Titus as a character is not strong or interesting enough to carry a novel.

So when I hunkered down this week to continue with The Chronicles of Prydain, I was dubious about the fourth instalment because it’s all about Taran wandering about on an identity quest. I am pleased to say that I grew to appreciate Taran much more, as Taran Wanderer successfully took a character that I didn’t particularly care about and upped him in my regard.

The fourth book in the series, Taran Wanderer follows Taran on his self-appointed quest to find out about his parentage and, by extension, his identity. Leaving Caer Dallben with Gurgi to seek answers from the witches in the Morva Marshes, Taran finds himself first in one adventure and then another as he travels across the land learning all he can about who is and who he can be.

While identity quests are always a bit conducive to eye rolling, having the tendency to get a little preachy, Taran Wanderer successfully cements Taran as a strong and stable protagonist and following his growth and development in this book is actually really lovely. As he goes from aspiring noble hero to embracing the meagre and humble, Taran’s story here is a true coming-of-age tale, as the boy travels and gathers various wisdoms that mould him into manhood.

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Alexander cleverly has a few of the more memorable characters make appearances within the book so it does not suffer to the extent that Titus Alone did (to my mind at least), while also introducing new characters that help in Taran’s journey of self-discovery. There is also a greater sense of threat and loss in this book, which we didn’t see so much in the others, that gives the story a stronger sense of realism and makes it much easier for readers to relate to the trials that Taran goes through.

It’s always nice to have your doubts and hesitations pleasantly proven wrong, and I am happy to say that Taran Wanderer absolutely did that for me. It’s both a poignant and entertaining read.

Author: Lloyd Alexander, 1967

Published: Holt, Reinhart & Winston. Pictured edition published in 2005 by Usborne Publishing Ltd. 

Taran Wanderer is the fourth book in Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain series.

The Castle of LLyr

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Continuing on with what is apparently my newest guilty pleasure and pastime, this week saw Taran the Assistant Pig Keeper embark on his most dangerous and dramatic adventure to date in The Castle of Llyr.

The book chronicles the most dramatic adventure Taran and his companions embark upon when Dallben decides that it is time for Princess Eilonwy to learn how to behave like a true lady. Sent away to Mona for instructions in court etiquette and ladylike behaviours, Taran accompanies Eilonwy and is amongst the first to jump to action when the Princess is kidnapped by the evil enchantress Achren. With the help of Gurgi, Fllewdur Flam, and the bumbling Prince of Mona, Taran goes on his greatest and most dangerous adventure yet to save Eilonwy and Prydain from a dark and fearsome future.

It’s a common trend in children’s series such as this that the third book is the one where the real drama gets mixed in: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Wide Window, The City of Rats etc. and The Castle of Llyr is no exception. Amongst the various exciting and dangerous situations that Taran and his companions occasionally find themselves in, there is a great, haunting hint that everything might not end happily for the heroes: that evil’s power might actually prove to be too great and overwhelm everything. I particularly like this and believe that it is important for stories to have these moments of doubt and threat thrown at the reader, otherwise there is no real mystery, suspense, or thrill and, honestly, what’s the point of reading on if nothing presents a challenge to the heroes?

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Alexander’s prose remains simple and to the point, painting perfect and clear images of the world without over-describing and over-explaining everything and allowing the reader’s imagination to take a measure of control.

The Castle of LLyr is an exciting and compelling continuation of an already engaging and imaginative series.

Author: Lloyd Alexander, 1966

Published: Holt, Reinhart & Winston. This edition first published in 2005 by Usborne Publishing Ltd.

The Castle of LLyr is the third book in Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain series.

The Black Cauldron

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Continuing on down the bildungsroman, children’s fantasy rabbit hole that I appear to have fallen into, this week my mind played host to a conceited prince, a hoard of wicked Hunstmen, a hundred battles and betrayals, and a wealth of friendship… this week I read The Black Cauldron.

The second book in Lloyd Alexander’s series, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Black Cauldron follows Taran and his companions as they join Prince Gwydion and his fearless friends Prince Adaon, Prince Ellidyr, King Smoit, and King Morgant as they venture towards the evil realm of Annuvin to steal Arawn’s Cauldron, the wicked instrument with which he makes his armies, with the intent to destroy it.

This is the book where the series begins to take on a more adult edge, a little like Prisoner of Azkaban in the Harry Potter series. While the central story describes battles, betrayals, and heroic moments, the underlying theme of the tale is growth, in particular Taran’s growth from childhood to manhood. Where he began his adventures in The Book of Three as a headstrong young lad who desired adventure and heroics, now he has wisdom and has seen the darker side of those heroic tales and he enters into his second adventure with a similar sense of enthusiasm to prove himself, but also a clearer sense of worldly wisdom, though none so developed as the authority figures.

Some of the book's most exciting and emotionally piquing moments are indeed ones where Taran is faced with ethical conundrums and decisions that conflict with his own sense of honour, pride, and morality, and these scenes are given just as much attention as any battle, sometimes more, and prove to be some of the most moving and entertaining moments: they are where the real story begins to take shape and follow its course.

Indeed the themes of growth and the wisdom that comes with it are so inspiring, that Disney had a crack at amalgamating the first two books into an animated feature, which from memory was not so great, but the fact that the tales inspired a Disney feature are alone something to marvel at.

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In terms of the fantasy elements and depictions of heroism, The Black Cauldron has many wonderful scenes of combat, magic, and the fantastical, but overall the book explores the darker side of fantasy, focusing on the central conflicts being between the heroes themselves rather than any maniacal monster, and featuring a lot more death, loss, and grief.

The Black Cauldron is a wonderful second instalment in what promises to be a lovely, lengthy adventure and I eagerly pluck my bookmark from the final pages of this one and place in the cover of the next!

Author: Lloyd Alexander, 1965

Published: Holt, Reinhart & Winston. Pictured edition published in 2004 by Usborne Publishing Ltd.

The Black Cauldron is the second book in Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain series.

The Book of Three

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Opting this week to engage in more ‘research’ for my own children’s novel, I curled up on The Couch and got lost in a world of heroes, darkness, battle, and fantasy. Having completely missed this series during my childhood, indeed I had never heard of it at all until my partner brought it up, I found myself transported back to being at an age of wonder and personal achievement with the turn of every page. This week, I read Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three.

This introductory tale tells the story of a young lad named Taran who lives as a pig-assistant, but yearns for adventure. He gets his wish when his master’s oracular pig, Hen-Wen, runs away and he travels into the perilous woods to find her. Once away from Caer Dallben, Taran is thrown into the adventure of a lifetime as he becomes the companion of royalty, spends time in an enchantress’s dungeon, gets captured by Fair Folk, and battles with one of Prydain’s most fearsome foes: The Horned King.

The Book of Three serves as a perfect introductory tale for a series, establishing its central characters and then outlining their first stage of development beautifully. A classic reluctant hero’s tale, the book is easy to read with crisp and clear prose that perfectly describes the world without becoming too verbose. Perfect for young readers and people like me who like to keep a book review in reserve each week.

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While the story treads the boards of traditional fairytale and hero’s quest, with recognisable characters and narrative arcs, it does have a lot in it that is fresh. Modelled on Welsh mythology, it is also a lovely bildungsroman series, following Taran from youth to maturity with all the important social lessons thrown in.

As an introductory story, The Book of Three does spend a fair bit of time finding its feet, but regardless of this it’s a wonderful story that is inclusive to all readerships.

Author: Lloyd Alexander, 1964

Published: Holt, Reinhart & Winston.

The Book of Three is the first book in Alexander’s pentalogy, The Chronicles of Prydain.

The Secret Garden

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While most children’s books tend to veer towards the magical and fantastic, there are some –such as Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden – that tell truthful, sincere tales while still managing to keep its readers captivated despite the lack of fairies and boy wizards. Indeed these types of children’s stories are far and far between so it’s lovely to come back to them once in a while.

The Secret Garden tells the story of young Mary Lennox, a sour and unloved child raised in India who then moves to Yorkshire to live in her uncle’s home when her parents die. Alone and without guidance, Mary takes to roaming the manor’s gardens by herself when, one day, she comes across a hidden key to a secret garden. Attracted by its seclusion and mystery, Mary determines to tend the garden and fill it with flowers come Spring and as she works she discovers more and more mysteries about her ties to Misselthwaite: her distant and strange uncle and her sickly reclusive cousin Colin, both of whom need some magic in their lives – like the magic of a blooming garden.

Whilst it honestly doesn’t sound like much of an exciting story, the power of The Secret Garden lies in its sincerity and its tackling of very complex themes that are relevant to this day including eating disorders, mental health, and healthy parenting. By referring to natural phenomena such as fresh air, exercise, nurturing, and positive thinking as ‘Magic’, Burnett manages to turn a gloomy and serious tale into one of intrigue; making it enjoyable for younger and mature readerships.

The central dramas of the story centre on the physical and emotional transformations of both Mary and Colin who learn a great many things throughout the book and grow from sickly, selfish brats (rather reminiscent of the kids in Wuthering Heights) to empathetic and functioning people. It’s rather lovely.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Then we have this beautiful imagery of the Yorkshire landscape that is described so well you could almost feel the roses coming to your cheeks with the brisk winds off the moor. In addition to being a real story with a wonderful sense of genuineness the world created is just as real and immersive, making for a lovely reading experience. The Secret Garden is truly a remarkable children’s book.

The Secret Garden was written by Frances Hodgson Burnett and first published as a novel in 1911 by Frederick A. Stokes (US) after a version was published as a magazine serial in 1910. It is regarded as a classic in English children’s literature and was made into a movie in 1993 starring Kate Maberly and Maggie Smith.

The Amber Spyglass

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The final and by far the most thrilling installment in the series, The Amber Spyglass brings the exciting adventures of Lyra and Will to a close. All the side stories, all the chunks of exposition, and all the minute details that you thought had no point coalesce into a gripping climax that ends an epic journey.

As Lyra drifts in an enchanted sleep put on her by her mother a new mission becomes clear: to travel to the land of the dead and apologise to Roger. Meanwhile, in the company of two angels, Will is on his own mission to rescue Lyra and then continue the search for his father. While the two slowly find their way towards each other an epic battle between Heaven and Earth is brewing with Lord Asriel at the helm, but time is short and each side is coming to realise that their success, or failure, depends on the choices of two unique children.

The skirting themes of science vs. religion, the free will of humans, and rebellion that have peppered the preceding books barrels in with its full weight here, as a recognisble battle takes place and overt references to Adam and Eve, right down to ending in a garden, drive the narrative. Rather like The Two Towers and Return of the King the chapters are splintered into the narratives of all the different character groups: Lyra, Will, Lyra and Will, Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel, and Mary Malone giving the book a lot of breadth and keeping it infused with a rippling freshness and excitement as no two chapters chronicle the same adventures.

Pullman flexes and shows off his impressive world-building skills; creating captivating creatures, such as the mulefa, and landscapes that are both immersive and inspire this wonderful sense of voyeurism: you would be happy to get lost in some of these worlds.

Image credit: Phillip Pullman.com

The character journeys themselves are strong and he does a wonderful job of showing and not telling just how much the two have changed: through actions, omniscient narration, and a subtle change in their dialogue. While some of the story’s aspects become predictable at the crucial point, the journey that Pullman takes the reader on, along with his characters, is wholly immersive and exciting. He even manages to redeem some formerly nasty characters and change our minds about them: a wonderful trick that comes from telling multiple stories away from Lyra and Will. 

It’s the perfect ending to an exciting fantasy series that might have started out a little slow, but quickly found its legs and began to run. I am back to feeling the way that I did when I first read it as a child: thrilled, buzzing, and satisfied right to the last page.

The Amber Spyglass is the final book in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. It was written in 2000, published by Scholastic in 2001, and won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year award.

The Subtle Knife

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The second installment in the His Dark Materials trilogy this is the book where things start to get a lot darker and complex. Themes overlap and fuse together to form the true foundation of the narrative -its underlying allegory- and new characters are introduced to flesh out the adventure and make it even more exciting than the first book.

The Subtle Knife begins with introducing readers to Will, a twelve year-old boy forced into adulthood as he’s had to spend much of his life taking care of his mother. When two sinister men break into their house to find something in relation to Will’s father: an explorer who mysteriously disappeared, Will’s life thrown into complete chaos as he accidentally kills one of them, hides his mother with a friend, and slips through a window into another world. There he meets a strange girl named Lyra and the two’s journeys become entwined as Lyra promises to help find Will’s father while learning as much as she can about Dust and what her Father Lord Asriel is planning to do with it.

The themes that were hinted at in The Northern Lights get fleshed out much more in this book with blasphemy, rebellion against a Creator, and the fusion of science and theology cementing hard to form the ground on which the characters travel. Religious fanaticism and its dangers are scarily –but effectively- depicted as children continue to have the run of the narrative and the book takes a dark turn as childhood innocence and purity gets corrupted and starts to decay.

Lyra’s character moves into the passenger seat, sharing the narrative limelight with Will. Despite being introduced in the smallest book of the series, Will’s character and back-story is beautifully fleshed out and he’s made into a rich character very quickly, but successfully.

Image credit: Phillip Pullman.com

Despite featuring a series of different worlds that need their own processes of development, The Subtle Knife doesn’t skimp on the adventure and excitement that the first book gave us a taste of. Part spy thriller, part fantasy adventure it chronicles an exciting –though sometimes confusing- story about rebellion, mankind’s arrogance and stubbornness, as well as children’s purity and naïve innocence. While the bridge between the two gets partially gapped in this book, it furthers the narrative really well while simultaneously reflecting the awkward and dramatic transition from child to adult.

Again, it’s a little slow to start and during the first hundred pages one can be tempted to put the book down and do something else, but once the richer meanings of the story sink in and the quest part of the narrative kicks off, it’s a page-turner.

The Subtle Knife is the second book in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, written in 1997 and published by Scholastic.

Northern Lights

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Winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award, the opening book in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is one of the few books I remember reading towards the end of my childhood and really adoring. This was a tender time for my literary mind as I had progressed beyond the kiddie's realms of Dahl and moved on to thicker, deeper authors like Rowling, and Pearce, and of course Pullman… and then I completely stopped reading all through adolescence.

But I can recall really loving this book: actually sitting still in one space for hours flicking through its pages with a swiftly beating heart. But re-reading it as an adult has not given me that pleasurable experience. I’ve accredited this to memories of the film they did –which was poorly written and really not good- and this seemed to have dampened the excitement I used to have about this book –though I did get it back a little towards the end.

Northern Lights introduces readers to Lyra Belacqua the vivacious young protagonist who goes on an epic journey when her friend Roger is kidnapped. Determined to find Roger and bring him home, Lyra embarks on a journey that will change everything she thought she knew about herself as she travels across the frozen landscapes to the North where a group of scientists are doing sinister experiments on children. Fighting Tarters, sailing with Gyptians, riding Armoured Bears, and flying with witches are just the beginning in a series of exciting adventures that await this extraordinary girl.

You can’t go wrong with a good quest narrative and this book definitely has that. Over the course of 400 pages there is plenty of excitement and danger and suspense as well as glimpses into a world that is quite similar to ours only with fantastical elements added in –e.g. the alethiometer (or symbol-reader) and daemons (spirit animals attached at the soul to humans). It’s a perfect book for young adults as it wonderfully depicts the world through the eyes of a child: creating different dramas, different villains, and different insights than an adult would see. It’s also wonderfully visual and written with enough complexities as to keep the reader engaged.

Image credit: Phillip Pullman. com

Despite having a bit of a sleepy and slow start shaped by world-building, the book comes into its own as soon as the journey begins and more and more characters are introduced and bonds formed. Even later in the piece comes the true meanings behind the words and the themes of archaic religion, modern technology, innocence and childhood, and free will bring a richer, deeper meaning to everything heretofore read.

By book’s end the hook is in and you’re hankering to grab the next instalment and find out what happens.

Northern Lights is the first book in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and was first published in 1995 by Scholastic Ltd. 

The Carrie Diaries

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The name Carrie Bradshaw is one that’s instantly recognised and immediately calls images of glamour, sex, and relationship drama to mind. Even if you’ve never watched an episode of HBO’s Sex & the City, you know all about the sassy columnist who’s looking for love: she’s probably one of the most recognised female characters around.

The Carrie Diaries tells us all about Carrie before she became the Carrie Bradshaw. Life is going fine as she enters her senior year. She has a group of great friends, aspirations to become a writer, and dreams of moving to New York. That is until Sebastian Kydd comes to town. Caught up in a romance with the new boy, Carrie’s world is thrown into chaos as she tries to navigate the minefields of dating, deals with the dramas of her friends, and suffers a betrayal that changes her ideas of the world.

This book definitely falls into the category of ‘guilty literary pleasure’. You know, it’s the type of book you indulge in knowing it’s trashy, predictable, clichéd, and no example of literary genius by any stretch of the imagination; and you revel in all of it. The Carrie Diaries is really as delightfully terrible as it sounds. The central story is predictable, but with a few twists and turns that keep in interesting, the world is not amazingly constructed, and the characters are all pretty mediocre. 

As a character study, it’s interesting hearing Carrie’s gossipy-yet-poetic tone describing the dramas of high school as well as witnessing the changes that morph her into the beloved New York columnist. Though it may be talking about clichéd and predictable teen things like cliques, idealistic romance, and gushy best-friendships the book has a nice adult tone that isn’t camp, but realistic and this gives it a fresh edge to counter the content and it kept me turning pages.

Image credit: Amazon

But it goes with saying that this book if for a certain audience. It’s girlish, gossipy, and a tad trashy –I have no qualms admitting it- and the kick that one does get out of it comes from having prior exposure to the character of Carrie Bradshaw, either from having read Sex & the City or seen the show. Images of Sarah Jessica Parker minus the wardrobe were constantly swirling around my head as a read each new drama, something that definitely could not have happened if I’d picked this up as a Bradshaw virgin. But if you’ve had Carrie exposure, then this is a fun read.

The Carrie Diaries was written by Candace Bushnell in 2010 and published by HarperCollinsPublishers.