The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman Book 2 blog review 2.

Blog #2

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman Book 2 blog review.

The Subtle Knife is the second book in the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials.
The second book begins in another universe; in an England is much the same as ours. A 12 year-old boy named Will Parry takes care of his mentally unstable mother. He gets into lots of fights at school because of teasing form other boys. He accidentally kills a man who had attempted to steal his father’s letters from his house. His father had left along time ago because he was an explorer but he never retuned. Will runs away after killing the man and sees a cut ‘window’ in empty space that leads him into another world. In the city he and Lyra meet, they journey together through the deteriorating city of Citagazze. To Lyra’s horror she sees that Will does not have a daemon. The only inhabitants are children all the adults have left. Will fights a young teenager for a knife that can cut through the matter that holds the different universes together and make a window into a different universe he then becomes the bearer of the knife. Wills father had lost his way while journeying through worlds contrary to what the reader was meant to believe before. Will meets his father but does not get to know him because a witch kills John Parry because he once loved her and he went off with Wills mother instead. The book ends with Lyra and Will separating and vowing to find each other again.

The main theme in this book is Authority between young Lyra and Will. Will is one year older than Lyra but due to Lyra’s nature she always questions authority and there is this continual power struggle between them.

The language that was used was that of two pre-pubescent children with little knowledge of proper English just street slang. The point of view jumps back and forth from Lyra and Will. I think it was very effective.

The issues that were raised in this book were growing up, finding new friends, and trust this all has pertained to other adolescents and me.

The author could have improved his book by giving more information about Wills father and how the knife works I think that that would of made the book more interesting.

Yes, I would recommend this book to other people.

Josh Blake