Abandoned by Booklikes

No. Just a thousand times no. This was long, boring, and there's a really weird set-up with two characters that I would rather Pullman just leave the hell alone. This dragged. Badly. I didn't like Lyra and I didn't like Pan. I just felt like this was filler and it ended on a weird note. 

No. 

Also can you call this Young Adult anymore since Lyra is not a young adult? She's 20 which puts her in New Adult status regarding book genres. Apparently my streak of disliking mostly every New Adult book I have read is undefeated.

No.

"The Secret Commonwealth" jumps forward and instead of following book #1 in the new series, we are plunged several years after Lyra and Will were separated. Lyra and Pan are finding themselves at odds and there's a mysterious murder that once again Lyra is in the middle of. We have previous characters from the last book (Malcolm and Alice) in this one to not do much besides fret over Lyra and or get shuttled off screen until Pullman remembers them. 

There's too much going on. I think we had to follow at one point 4 or 5 people? That includes Lyra, Pan, Malcolm, Alice, and others I am blanking on now. I think the worst part is as I said I didn't like Lyra or Pan.

Pullman turns Lyra into a freaking Mary Sue. Everyone wants to protect her and or is in love with her. I just...deep breath. I don't know what this was. It was a hodge podge of ideas that don't work. I don't know when book #3 is coming out, but I hope that Pullman gets rid of the characters we don't care about and focus on Lyra. The mess with her and Pan made zero sense and it got so stupid I couldn't even keep reading about it.

I started skimming over Malcolm's parts. I don't like him.

Alice felt the same but older between books #1 and #2 and I would have rather followed her.

The writing didn't read like Pullman and the flow was awful. There are stories within stories and info dumping galore. 

The book ends on a damn cliffhanger. 

Also, see spoiler below.