What I did like about this book is that it starts with Lyra, a girl we have become acquainted with from another world, meeting Will, a boy from our world. Bringing the fantasy into our own reality was surreal and interesting. But only for a minute and then it became a bore. The story was slow and at some points stopped altogether to allow Pullman his theological preachings of anti-church and anti-god. If the story had been metaphorical I would have enjoyed it more, but it became less fiction and more essay.

In this book, Lyra and Will travel between worlds attempting to find his father and continue on with Lyra's mission. There are a lot of minor characters in too many places spreading the story out too thin to move quickly enough to keep one's attention. Eventually the action picks up as the characters merge, setting the scene for the major battle in book 3, but I was too annoyed with his writing by then to shrug it off. I almost didn't read the third book after this.