The Amber Spyglass: A Book Review

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

     Meh. I really hated quite a bit of this book. A lot of it was the politics going on in the Church. Real life church politics are boring at best and dangerous at worst. This was both, except fantasy of course. The only part I really enjoyed was the Mulefa... or whatever they were called. It was almost like watching a tv show where they go into the middle of nowhere jungles and live with jungle people. Interesting. I gave this book only 2 stars because 1) of the politics mentioned above and 2) mostly because of the ending. I was waiting the whole book to find out just how Lyra was going to be tempted, and the book never really said in the end what the temptation was. Was it falling for Will? Was it living in his world? Never really found out for sure what is was NOR did I really see the negative repercussions the Church was so afraid of the whole time. The whole love thing somehow fixed the Mufela's Dust problem... didn't really see how that worked out either. I suppose I just feel the whole ending was terribly rushed. Not enough detail to throughly wrap up all the loose ends.

    Series review: 3 stars. Overall, the books are fairly well written. The first one is definitely the best. I do NOT think these are books for children. Perhaps they started out that way, but there are ideas here that are way too complex for children to understand, especially this last installment. Also, the whole series saddens me: so this is how the Church is perceived by the Atheists? I wouldn't want to be a part of anything remotely like what is being portrayed here either. Remember, the church, no matter the denomination or lack there of, is made up of and governed by human beings, just like in the rest of the world. There are going to be things about these human groups that aren't so Jesus like. But hey, we're working on it. :-) I can't speak for other Christians, but I would love for the questioning sort of people out there to call me out on the non-Jesus like things I do. I want to fix it ASAP.


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