Book Review: The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Subtle Knife picks up almost where The Golden Compass ended, except that this second installment took a slight detour in order to introduce us to a second main protagonist in the form of Will Parry. I quite enjoy Will, and found him a great counterpart for Lyra. Their personalities are very different, but they are both defined most by the protectiveness that fuels them and the fierceness that courses through them. Will is both more civilized and more violent than Lyra, which shines a softer light on our original protagonist than we saw in her first book. The two children on the cusp of their adolescence are quite obviously being set up as either the salvation or damnation of the countless worlds they now know exist.
“It’s like having to make a choice: a blessing or a curse. The one thing you can’t do is choose neither.”