Deanna

The lesson from this is to check the page count before you request a book of short stories. I only read 19 of the 99 stories in this collection. Bradbury is at his best, for me, when he builds a sense of dread and ends up hitting you in the face at the end. My favorites were “The Night”, “The Million-Year Picnic”, “The Veldt”, and “A Sound of Thunder”. And the award for the most wtf story definitely goes to “The Small Assassin”. That one messed me up.

I first read this book in 7th grade and stayed up most of the night to finish it in one day–I could not put it down. The trilogy is timeless, dealing with subjects that all ages can relate to. Both Lyra and Will are great characters to follow as they have to face very real, deep issues and what it means to grow up and find your truth in a sea of different ideologies. The world Pullman created is amazing and I revisit it every few years.

It was fine. The first section of the book had good pacing and some increasingly tense and terrifying scenes that lived up to the marketing. The pacing in part two felt too slow and then the author decided to use sexual assault as a plot point, which was unnecessary. It turned me off the book for about a month before I decided to just finish it. The end was solid and duly gruesome with only a slight nod to some of the racial dynamics that may have been true in the 90s but probably could have been reevaluated for this story.

All of the women are intentionally insufferable, and sometimes this was highly amusing, but other times it made me want to throw the book. It was overall enjoyable, but probably best read in short bursts.

An amazing–albeit heartbreaking–end to the series. Each time I finish, I miss the characters and the world.