Megan

This world is absolutely amazing, and I love Lyra and Pan with all my heart. The descriptions of the land, the characters, and emotions are incredibly vivid and powerful.

Barely related personal note: I started reading this years ago and couldn't remember where I stopped. I have a bind up of all three novels and had seen the movie, so that made it even more difficult. After finishing the book, I still have no idea how far I originally read, but I can say it's a definite possibility I had actually finished it. If I did, that means I got to do one thing people always say they wish they could do: I read it for the first time again!

This is the best example of shock porn I've come across while reading books for a book club. It's like Laymon sat down and deliberately included the most disturbing things he could think of just to be edgy.

As another reviewer said, this book is somehow both utterly boring and completely disgusting. The characters are one-dimensional, the plot (if you can call it that) is contrived, and the whole thing is beyond stupid, predictable, and full of clichés.

When I say this book is disgusting, I'm not referring to the general gore, which doesn't bother me at all. It's disgusting because of the author's insistence on providing graphic detail of the bodies and sexual desires/arousal/etc. of the 12- and 16-year-old heroes both from their point-of-view and the point-of-view of a pedophile. I returned my typo-ridden Kindle e-book and got my 99¢ back, but I'll never get back the time I wasted reading this trash.

Very cute! The Kiki's Deliver Service inspiration is pretty heavy-handed, but I can see where the author is going and diverging from that initial inspiration by the end. I can see how this will be even better in the next book, which I plan to pick up. I don't love the rhyming incantations because it feels extra childish and bizarre to read an adult saying cute little sayings, but other than that the magic system was actually quite interesting! The friendships are wonderful too. The biggest problem I had was that almost everything and everyone felt developed at, or just below, surface level. I think as the series goes on this could definitely improve though!

I think my favorite thing about this author is how much credit he gives to those who have helped him. You don't often hear about all the undergrads who put in hours of grunt work to make research possible. I really appreciated that Dr. Seeley didn't just mention them as an after notes either. He highlighted their work ethic and importance to his successful research.

I'm definitely biased about this book because attending Dr. Seeley's seminar on “The Flight Guidance Mechanisms of Honey Bee Swarms” motivated me more than anything during my second semester of college. His enthusiasm for honeybee behavior is incredibly contagious.

I'm really glad I was encouraged to pick up this book so many years later. Dr. Seeley does a great job of explaining things in layman's terms and answers questions quickly after they enter the reader's mind.

I originally rated this 3 stars when I created my Goodreads account. I had finished Mockingjay many years before that, so I rated the whole series the same. I knew I liked the final book less than the others, but oh boy did I forget how much less. I know I almost DNF'd it the first time around, and I almost DNF'd the audiobook this time. I almost never DNF audiobooks, and usually it's only because the narrator is annoying me.

I can't really put my finger on precisely why, but this book irritates me. It was such a lackluster end to a pretty good series. I felt for Katniss during the first two books, but I got really sick of the self-imposed martyrdom in this one. The fade-to-black should not be used for the conclusion of an entire series worth of physical and emotional conflict.