Corie's Reviews > The Amber Spyglass

If you haven’t read the ENTIRE three books, please don’t read any further. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you because the ending is so endearing and…..lasting, that I would HATE to take it away from you.

I absolutely fell in love with Lyra. Didn’t you? She was the sister I wish I would have had growing up. She was myself as I played with all of my brothers in the mudfields, she was the daughter I’m sure every woman would yearn to have. In my opinion, Philip Pullman was brilliant in his creation of this little girl. Her flaws were her strength just as much as her strengths were her salvation. And when you take her inquisitive innocence and throw in Will’s brave maturity…..together, the two of them are almost too much to bear. I was heady with adoration for the two of them combined. I’m sure some would say they were too perfect together, too sappy, too trite. But my cynicism runs deep and my heart was still touched. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl or because my heart still remembers the depth of that first love. The absoluteness of it. My heart remembers “Going to China”, (haa haa) and it longs to visit again.

Will was the boy every girl wants to fall in love with. Loyal, strong, clever, honest, sweet and faithful. I hated him for agreeing to close every single window except one, but loved him for his dedication to do what’s “right”. I wanted to shake him and tell him that when he gets older he will realize that one more window wouldn’t have mattered – that what he was at Lyra’s side was worth one silly little window in the fabric of the worlds. But of course, he wouldn’t listen to me, because he is young and doesn’t know how rare True Love is. So I sighed (and cried) and watched them (felt them!) split forever. And I agonized over whether they would ever figure out how to Astral Project into eachother's lives. And if the one would wait for the other when they died, so that they could walk out the window they created hand in hand. I could literally picture them sitting there on that bench for an hour each year, aching for eachother once again. Sigh....

I liked how Mrs. Coulter was deep enough to be both intrinsically evil and love Lyra with a blindly, maternal love in the end. I liked how the Master at Jordon and John Faa were father figures in their own ways. I liked little Roger’s complete faith and how Iorek’s devotion was tempered with a knowledge that was higher than either of the children’s.

I did find Mary Malone unbearably boring and found myself wishing away any chapter having to deal with her and her mulefa. Get back to the real story of Lyra and Will! I could have done without her entire story line.

And of course there was Pantalaimon. How much do we all wish we had a dæmon that we could see, touch, talk to, rely on? How much fun would it be to have a morphing little partner in everything we do? Ahhh, was a fun concept to explore and probably the very secret to HDM’s success. Pullman’s descriptions of the different dæmon’s throughout each book were descriptive, imaginative and comical.

All in all, an excellent book. I wish I would have read it slower so that I could have enjoyed Lyra and Will's company a little longer.