Rating – 4/5 | Genre – Fantasy adventure
Well, its finally happened, I’ve read the final book of the classic Chronicles of Narnia book series. Super brief opening, after 7 books this section all becomes the same thing really. I will say before I get into this, there may be spoilers ahead but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.
It is Narnia’s darkest hour. A false Aslan is commanding all Narnians to work for the cruel Carlomenes and striking terror into every heart. King Tirian’s only hope is to call Eustace and Jill back to Narnia, in an attempt to find the true Aslan and restore peace to the land. But a mighty battle lies ahead. (synopsis from the book, heres the Goodreads link).
Initial reaction…
Throughout the whole series I was always looking to get the same feeling I got when I read The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, whereby the fantasy elements felt “magical” to read. I think I got that from this book. This one definitely feels like an amalgamation of all the books in one, but with a much darker twist to the land of Narnia that you come to love and care for in the whole series. There was even a moment of sadness I felt as I read the book, knowing that the series was finally coming to an end.
Favourite moments...
There is the possibility of spoilers here!
- Darker twist: Following on from The Silver Chair, this book sees Narnia in a much darker light. There is a sense of real danger towards the world, with the help from the children still not being enough to save the land. Now, I also know that Narnia is a weird parallel to the bible, but there is very much the danger of a war between Aslan “heaven” and Tash “hell”.
- Tying in past books: throughout this book there are call backs to some of the more iconic moments from the other books. It was nice to see that all these moments weren’t just secluded to their own books; more like each action from the pat books was building up towards this big final ending.
- Return of the seven royals: one thing I was always hoping for was that after all these books all the kids would eventually return to Narnia. Then my prayers were answered, it was really nice to see how all the characters interact together and really see how different they all really are. Although I was sad to see Susan wasn’t there, it was interesting to see how Narnia hasn’t always positively affected people who visited.
In conclusion…
Overall, I thought this was a very successful ending to the overall series. It really felt like everything that had been experienced in the prervious books had finally come to fruition. There had also been moments as I read the series I was wondering how it end, this seemed like a very fitting finish.
I will say though, even at the end, I found myself really not enjoying Aslan as a character. Throughout the series he just gives every vague instructions, in this one he barely explains what even happened to the world. But this was a small frustration that didn’t entirely tarnish my feelings to this book.
Now that I’ve finished this book I’m going to do a full review of the whole series, but I’m also going to explore other book series that I’ve for some reason neglected reading.
The Next Big Opinion 