Review: Bärnstenskikaren

Bärnstenskikaren by Philip Pullman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The problem with this entire series has been that I've enjoyed the books - even though they kinda derailed a bit from the steampunky fantasy stuff in the first book - but the ending has not been good. It was fine in the first two, because I could always hope for something better in the next one, but when the series is ending? Not so much.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book and the bittersweet ending, but somehow I thought it was building up to something different than this. There was some sort of big battle going on, which was more like it, but then Lyra and Will kinda ... fucked off on a vacation and left the battle behind them? O...k? I don't really know what to do with that.

Wasn't a fan of the big Christian themes either, tbh. Could've done without them. And the developement of certain characters, who became good for no reason? Aww, come on, that's one of my fave tropes and then it was handed terribly.

But other than that, I enjoyed the book a lot, I like almost all the characters and creatures that show up: it's a very creative world, and I must say I like that.

And let's be real, this is hardly the worst last part of a trilogy I've read during the past years. It did much better than most other YA trilogies out there, let me tell you. Just not well enough for 5 stars all the way through.

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True story.