This one suffered from middle book syndrome. It was good...just not amazing. It was very slow throughout and plot wise nothing much happened. The concept of the knife was introduced and we met our new character Will. That's about it. 
 Still, it was good. The Lee Scoresby climax was great, Will is a nice new character, Lyra has grown quite a lot as a character, the worlds are interesting and so are some of the new creatures and races. 
 I can't give this five stars, I want to but I can't. It gets four. Just.