The Secret Commonwealth

[Plot warning: Cliffhanger! Content warnings: Rape, suicide.]

Starts off a bit slow, but once it gets its sea-legs it goes to some very dark places.

Reading this brought up a lot of sadness and grief for my pet, which makes perfect sense in hindsight since so much of it revolves around dæmon separation. There's a lot going on in this metaphor and Pullman is teasing out some interesting implications from it.

The more magical-realist bits about the titular Secret Commonwealth (and the interlude in Prague) are really solid. Some of the other, less-magical bits don't seem to hold water quite as well... but we'll see where it goes. Pacing is kind of all over the place and I didn't find the villains (whether people or philosophies) entirely convincing.

I am also very uneasy about the way this book seems to be setting up a romantic relationship between a 31-year-old professor and his 20-year-old student as if that's A-OK and not at all problematic... guess we'll have to wait for the third installment to know for sure, but it ain't looking good.