This book review has been a long time coming! It’s been over a month since my last post and I appreciate the patience as I tackle a few old challenges and some new adventures! Finals were tough and I’m happy to be back at home and up to my old tricks once again! I’ve tried a few times to read The Golden Compass and almost finished it last time but didn’t quite get there. This time, I borrowed the whole series and set out to read them all. And WOW was I shocked at how good these books were. At the moment, I’m already halfway through the third book and the review for the second book should be out sometime soon. Pullman does an incredible job of creating entire new worlds that seemed pulled from nowhere and investing the reader into the little life of Lyra. I would like to address the biggest controversy around the books, which is that they are heretical or anti-God. I didn’t really understand why these claims were being made until I reached the end of the first book, then the lightbulb went off. They do have a distinctly anti-organized religion bent and one could even say they are anti-God. However, these are fantasy novels and are not being presented as factual by Pullman. I feel that they might not be appropriate reading for a very religiously focused household but I think that with the use of deeper literary analysis, these books can be understood just fine. I also have a strict policy of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These books contain some fantastic writing and I feel transported every time I open them. Some people may take offense at the longer plot points but I don’t think that is any reason to deprive yourself of some truly fantastic fiction. With the elephant in the room addressed, let’s move on to the actual book!

The Golden Compass follows Lyra Belacqua, a precocious eleven year old and her beloved daemon, Pantalaimon. Lyra has grown up running feral through the halls of Jordan College in Oxford and becomes swept away from her beloved home and friends in a tide of destiny. She travels with gypsies, explores the Arctic, befriends an armored bear, and confronts the horrors sponsored by her own mother. By the end she is reunited with Lord Asriel, her guardian but that is certainly not the end of her story. Lyra uses her wits and innocence to bend others to her will and complete her destiny. Lyra is a wonderful character and following her journey in the book was a joy. Not only is Lyra a marvel of literary creation, all of the lands that she travels through are described so vividly that they feel as real as the chair that I’m sitting on while I read. If you couldn’t already tell, I loved this book. I know that it’s classified as young adult fiction but I really felt that it was a book that was more meant for adults? I enjoyed it much more as a young woman than I would have in my younger years.