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Reviewed by: Kim
Rating: 10/10
Genre: Fantasy
399 pages/1995
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The Golden Compass
by
Philip Pullman
About a year ago I listened to this book as a book-on-tape in my car while commuting. I enjoyed it very much and decided I wanted to read the entire trilogy, but I wanted to actually read this book first, instead of just listening to it. And I'm glad I did.This is the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The other two books are The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. This is the story of Lyra, a young girl who lives the carefree life of a child in Oxford until one day she overhears something she shouldn't. She quickly finds herself pulled into a mystery involving kidnapped children and unthinkably cruel experiments. This book has technically been classified as a book for young adults, but I really don't see why. This book is much more mature than any of the Harry Potter books, for example. The subject matter is complex and the writing style itself is far from simplistic. All of the characters are very well developed and I cared very much what happened to each of them. The plot was intense, full of twists and surprises. It never slowed or bogged down. Reading this book, for me, was even more enjoyable than listening to it on tape.I'm trying to think of things to list as negatives about this book, but I'm not coming up with much. My biggest issue is that it ended. The ending was rather abrupt, but it was definitely at a major juncture in the story, and I knew from the outset that this is the first book in a trilogy. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next two books.
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