want a real life adventure? come to Australia we have spiders bigger than your hand.

First thing first though.....
Why? Why would you end a book there! Pullman you bastard.

There now thats said and done and out of the way, i can explain my main issue.

This book was good, not as good as the first book (in my opinion) but enjoyable. My problem was the reading - when i was reading i was rather enchanted with the story and characters. No, It was whenever i put the book down that i started having difficulties - i just never felt like picking it back up again, could never get myself in the right mood. So not only am i baffled by this (as i said i did enjoy The Subtle Knife) but it also took me ages to finish.
Tonight i finally sat down in hopes of getting it over and done with and i read like one page and the book was done! which just left me confused and annoyed. lol.

Anyways let me stop my bitching over my apparent insane mood swings and get on with it.

Now talk about Depressing! So many awesome people died so unexpectedly. Towards the end people just seemed to be dying left, right and center! talk about a shock!

Now onto The Characters who are still kicking.
We see all the usual suspects except the bear (who i greatly missed) we also get to meet two new members that join us in this adventure. With the main one being Will, who i just adore!, he had to be my favorite character in The Subtle Knife. His personality was just so Strong. What he had to endure whole growing up while heartbreaking is turning this incredible boy into an even more incredible young man, who is wise beyond his years and with such moral strength as well! i just loved him. How he treated the cats in this book was just wonderful and always bought a smile to my face, I felt so devastated for him at the end of the book, it was just so... unfair. but i have no doubt any of it will hold him back.
(view spoiler)

The writing overall was good though their were a couple of instances were i felt like i was being told something more than showed. - i recall this happening in the first book (The northern Light), along with the word'Love' being thrown around which im not a big fan of. to me love is a sacred word which should only be used when appropriate when it comes to other people, though i admit im guilty of using it often when it comes to objects.

Here i am going into uber bitchy mode and now im also going to complain about one scene where i was actually shown something and very much wish i hadnt been .....i now believe i have an UNDERSTANDING of what happens between daemons when their human counter parts are have... lets call it 'intimate relations' the imagine isnt very nice and very much made me cringe. god how i wish it i could it from my memory....... lol.

Otherwise good book. lots of interesting things happening and im interested in seeing where this is all headed. though next time i think i might try the audio version instead.

So im going to rate this book 3.5 stars. it might have gotten more if i wasnt feeling so... space cadet as of late, but thats life for you.


Still recommend this series though....