La Belle Sauvage

[Hiddeninplainsight]

So my wonderful mumsnetters - has anyone read this? I have a Northern Lights fan who is desperate to read it, but I have heard that the series is darker and so I'm a little worried it may possibly be less suitable for advanced younger readers. Is it very much YA?

I have just bought it today for my 11y boy! I will let you know!

Watching. Also can you read it as the first in the series? I know it's a prequel so it sounds as though you can but not sure.

I would recommend reading it after the HDM trilogy. It will make much more sense that way. It’s very much an accompaniment to those books.
I have not quite finished it but it is fairly dark and there is some suggestion of one character being a sexual predator. Not graphic but not for younger children imho.

It's all on radio player at the moment so you could listen to it and check?

He is hooked. He loves it.

I didn't know the author so it is a discovery for all of us

Trying not to post spoilers, I have finished the book. It's darker than the original books, and there's a few depictions of the other side of relationships to the central one in the original trilogy - manipulation and coercion for example.

Finish the original trilogy first and while your DC is doing that read La Belle Sauvage yourself and make up your mind. Personally I wouldn't give it to a primary school aged child.

Loved it, read it all on the first night!

Oh dear. That is a real pain. She has read all of the original trilogy, and has been looking forward to this one for months (since seeing it advertised in Waterstones about 4 months ago). She HATES being told that things are too old for her (red flag/bull type thing).

In terms of a comparison - what sort of books would you consider it similar to? The Hunger Games books? Something else?

I guess I probably need to read it, but I wasn't massively keen on the first three, and so I'd prefer to avoid it!

My 9yo is reading it at the moment, but I haven't read it myself. Is it going to be too much for him? (he's read the original trilogy)

Just finished it myself! I don't think it's any more frightening or graphic than the original series, so if you were happy your children read those then I wouldn't think it a problem (though I'm 50 TBH!).

There are a few bloody fights, both human and animal, some threatening religious organisations, a scary bad guy and one description of sex as seen by an 11 year old boy "I think they were making babies"

GreenHatHacker - OOOHHH!!! That sounds promising! She could cope with all of that with no problem....

...oh, and it was beautiful, moving literature with a gripping plot, as you would expect!

I’m part way through. There is a suggestion that someone may be willing to use a young boy as “bait” to blackmail a man who “likes young boys” but so far it’s not been acted upon and was strongly argued against by another character.
There’s sex but very innocently witnessed and not labelled as such.

I just finished it. My kids are younger, but I think 11ish would be fine, 9 maybe slightly too young? More for how tense and scary it is in parts than anything. I loved it.

OK thanks, he's used to slightly older books anyway so hopefully it'll be OK. I didn't get a chance to read it first before he grabbed it

I have read it. It was brilliant, but my DS will not get it yet.

1. As PP said there was a discussion whether to use a young boy as bait for a paedophile.
2. There was a sex scene.
3. There was a brutal rape scene with an underage girl. Not sure if children actually understand what is being described.

None of this was glamorised, but DS at 9 is a bit young for this.

I bought it from Amazon 2 days after release but I'm still on the first chapter (I like to read a new book first to decide if it's age appropriate and to decide what voices to give each character when I read aloud to 11yo DD- if a jobs's worth doing....).

The reason it's taken so long is that I read a spin-off book called "Tales from the North" about Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison's first encounter. Short but enjoyable, I would definitely give that to a 10yo to read alone.
I'll post a link.

Sorry, Once Upon a Time in the North.link