The Amber Spyglass (Mini-Review)

The Amber Spyglass is the third and final installment in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. In it Lord Asriel's forces face off against the Authority while Lyra Silvertongue and Will Parry have the fate of free will itself on their shoulders.

This book gives more information on the Authority aka God and is so the most likely to offend certain groups of Christians. I would've liked to see more of the hierarchy between God and Metatron. This as it seemed one might have been worse than the other or at least a power struggle could have been happening. So if you're a Christian that doesn't like seeing God in a bad light, even in a fictional book, I would suggest you turn away.

I really enjoyed how the character arcs of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter were done. You could see how they loved and admired Lyra, but they were never painted as good parents. Too many times in fiction abusive parents are given redemption arcs as parents. Their children all too often forgive them and that's shown as a positive thing. Truth is that there are abusive parents and their children need more media to show them it isn't wrong to hate their parents. While Lyra doesn't hate her mother and father at the end, neither does she love them.

This book is both the thickest and strangest in the series. At least there were two previous books to prepare readers for this oddity. We find out about how death works in this universe, the origins of the Spectres, and a lot more. As readers are given compelling characters to focus on it's a lot less confusing of a book than it could have been.

The message the book ends with would have been silly if it wasn't so heartbreaking. Basically the book tells you to live your life. You need to actually live and have experiences. The life you are living is more important than mourning what could have been.

I had forgotten how painfully sad this book ends. Normally I read in silence but I was letting out little moans because things happened.

I would recommend The Amber Spyglass to those who wish to finish this series. I would also recommend this book to those that like both science fiction and fantasy.