Somehow, even if I read the Narnia series at months interval, it still feels like yesterday that I finished the previous book.

It may be because I have seen the movie, that reading TVOTDT felt light and really easy to read. I think that compared to the earlier books, this one has more small stories (therefore, has more "lessons") and more relatable characters, unlike Prince Caspian where I mentioned that some characters seemed unnecessary. At first, I may have thought the same for TVOTDT. But again, I read the series alongside Mark Eddy Smith’s Aslan Call, and the light for these lessons are shed more clearly.

Excited to finish the series, hopefully before the year ends!

"This is a very great adventure, and no danger seems to me so great as that of knowing when I get back to Narnia that I left a mystery behind me through fear.”

Remember those posters that when you looked at them directly they looked like one thing but if you unfocused your eyes they would look totally different?

I could never look at those things in the way that would allow me to see the secret picture within the picture. Why am I writing about these relics of the early nineties? Because I feel like that is exactly the type of poster Edmund and Lucy are looking at when they find themselves swimming in the Narnian ocean next to the Dawn Treader.

The two youngest Pevensie children bring their cousin Eustace (who is a bit of a Debbie Downer at the beginning and who has parents who wear special undergarments) on a quest with Caspian. The goal was to find the 7 lords Caspian's uncle had sent away.

This entry is almost like Gulliver's Travels in Narnia, if you can imagine that. My favorite part is when they find Lord Rhoop on the island where dreams come true and all the men want to go ashore.

"This is the island where dreams come true. Not daydreams, but dreams, Dreams. Understand?"

This sentence is followed by thirty seconds of quiet before all the men spring into action rowing as they all remember some nightmare they don't want to come true. It's just a good example of Lewis's ability to write humor.

Ultimately, this is the volume where that beast Aslan breaks up with Lucy and Edmund. Saying that they are getting "too old." I guess that's why they have a harder and harder time seeing him with each successive book.

A definite improvement upon Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader delivers on arguably the coolest aspect of The Chronicles of Narnia: Narnia itself!

We finally get to explore parts of this world that we had been wondering about. We get to see some races we hadn’t previously seen in some lands we hadn’t previously explored with some characters we hadn’t had fleshed out yet.

A nice last hoorah for the younger Pevensie siblings, they were both in perfect royal form. Prince Caspian got fleshed out a little better. Reepicheep isn’t completely intolerable. It was nice to see Lewis do some characterization other than for Aslan!

I hated Eustace (I understand that the purpose of the character was to hate him, but I was feeling like I hated him even more than Lewis had originally intended.) so much in the beginning that I really feel like his character arc was arguably the best part of this installment, unarguably top two with the worldbuilding.

Once again, the biblical imagery in this book is second to none & continues to draw me in. If you aren’t a believer, I can understand why that would be off-putting to you.

Let’s just say I have no intentions of slowing down with this series!

I really did not enjoy this book at all. I had so much trouble keeping interest, I’m pretty sure I zoned out a lot of parts of the story. It was enough to make me not want to even read the 6th and final story to this series (on top of me not really caring about the other books as well)... but I’ve come this far. Here’s to wondering if I’m making a mistake...