If The Golden Compass felt like a game of loyalty and betrayal, the tests of friendship and free will, and The Sutle Knife was a maze of interconnectedness, family and the marks of destiny - The Amber Spyglass at its core is a poignant, moving story about sacrifice, the need to fight for what we believe in, and the cruelest things that we need to do in order to heal the common good. Philip Pullman's final tragic book in His Dark Materials trilogy is one of the most powerful books I've ever read in my whole life. His impressionistic vision and re-vision of Milton's Paradise Lost in his majestic finale will impale a great thorn in your heart that for weeks, this series ending would still haunt you. If you are reading this book, make sure you grab some tissues because by the time you will finish it, human as we are, it might move you to cry.

From the start of the book, we are plunged directly into Lyra's world where she was captured by Mrs Coulter. I would no longer further explain the events for it would spoil the whole story, but what's necessary was that we are forced into thinking if the one holding Lyra was either a friend or foe. Will, on the other hand, also forced to continue his journey, was accompanied by two angels, Baruch and Balthamos, after the demise of his father. His objective is now to try and go to Lord Asriel's camp and offer the Subtle Knife which would serve as a great weapon to the Authority. However, Serafina Pekkala had also started gathering masses of witches to aid Lord Asriel's crusade, as well as one of my favourite characters in the face of literary history, the polar bear king Iorek Byrnison, had fled from the melting Arctic ice to wage a battle alongside Asriel's army.

All of them especially Lyra and Will are plunged into a crisis in which they are fighting a battle without any hope, any inkling of winning, for they are going against the great Authority that holds all the cosmos. Both of them have to go through the world of the dead, to make an opening to another world that would reach Authority's realm. What astounds in the book was the gripping, uncompromising finale with Mrs Coulter and Lord Asriel proving their worths, forced to give the cruelest sacrifice any human can give.

The Amber Spyglass, like Lord of the Rings's Return of the King, served as the most important book of the trilogy. It's harrowing, intelligent and impressively written. Here, Pullman tries to pull out the threads that he had laid out since the first book. He answers questions and clears our doubts, and here also created a chilling allegory to the recent world that we live in now. Needless to say, it's the characters that truly shines the most. Mrs Coulter is probably one of literature's most multi-layered villain, and she will surely make you doubt again and again whether she's for the good or for the evil. Her bearing is as fluid as ever, and as Hollywood is planning to bring the trilogy to the big screen and Nicole Kidman is already slated to play Mrs Coulter, I am sure she will bring justice to the character.

It's incomparable to any book: you can't say it's like Harry Potter of a bit like Lord of the Rings because His Dark Materials stand on its own. It transcends into literature as a fantasy great alongside Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Narnia. It's just so startling because this trilogy is supposed to be for children, but its narrative and elements that it talks about were so effusively adult. Religion, theology, science-fiction, and magic, it talks like a fantasy with a bit of sci-fi.

It just really puts something on me, after reading the final page in the book that destiny absolutely plays a big role in our lives, and that's something not human that we could control on our own. The ending is touching and very emotional that one could not help but shed tears, giving our sympathies to Lyra and Will, two people who fought bravely together for the common good yet not destined to be together for the rest of their lives. This majestic, poetic ending itself is worth reading the book throughout. Now I am holding my grips to the ending of Deathly Hallows of the Potter saga for I am always predicting for a while now that it will be a tragic one.


Rating: A+