by Philip Pullman

Book Review: The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman

I thoroughly enjoyed the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read them when I was in my early to mid twenties and still found they appealed to me despite the target audience being Young Adult.

In my early thirties, the prequel to the trilogy was announced, The Book of Dust. I signed up for an alert to the release of the book and bought the hardback. I began reading it, became bored. so swapped it out for another book. Weeks later I decided that I owed it to my love for the trilogy to complete the Book of Dust.

Firstly, the hardback is huge, very difficult to hold. Not quite sure why it needed to be so big as the pages were thick, the font large and the excess pages were plentiful. If you purchase the Book of dust online, opt for softback or e-book.

The reason why I gave up so quickly initially is partly due to the story not gripping my attention but mainly because I felt that the language was not at the same level as the trilogy. This book felt like I was reading a story that was aimed at the lower end of Young Adult. This annoyed me and made me question whether Philip Pullman did actually pen this book?

The story itself was not particularly fluid, and felt like it was following the random thoughts of a child as opposed to a fully thought out storyline.

Ultimately I was disappointed. It was nice to learn about Lyra pre her time at Oxford College, but in my opinion this was at the detriment to the quality of the storytelling.

If you are like me and are a fan of The His Dark Materials Trilogy, you will undoubtedly want to read to understand the beginnings of the story, just beware you many finish with a feeling of chagrin.