Originally published on Goodreads.
As with the other His Dark Materials titles, Pullman has a compelling writing style which flows well and has the right balance of descriptiveness without being too verbose. I enjoyed getting back into the world of Lyra but felt that the book was somewhat slow to get going. It wasn’t until the flood that things began to get exciting, which was more than half way through the book. That’s not to say important things aren’t happening, and the background story is being established but it is only Pullman’s writing skill which meant I didn’t get bored.
From then on, it reminded me of Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit with the characters on a journey and making regular encounters with various challenges or surprises. However, unlike in the other HDM books, these have been left mostly unexplained and so on finishing the book it felt quite incomplete. Of course, this is just volume 1 and so I shall be looking forward to the continuation of the story in the next books!