The Golden Compass

"i need to reread this book I remember it being soo good. Nostalgic "

"Boring, hard read. Did not like. I anticipated reading the next in the series but do not think I will after reading this one. Supposedly this is catered to children, but it was not an easy read, word-wise, so I'm not sure that's a good audience in my opinion."

"I really enjoyed this book. It did feel like it was dragging on for quite a while, before the story really picked up speed, but in a way I feel as if it was necessary to really lay out the information the readers needed involving their world, the science, politics, daemons, and such of this book to really understand and appreciate the story. It did feel a bit intense for a children's book, but nonetheless I think as a kid I would have enjoyed it anyway. The characters were great, and felt many-sided without feeling forced, and I loved how in the various situations Lyra was in she subtly changed in her habits and behavior without making her feel out of character, which I felt highlighted the adaptability and susceptibility to influence children have without losing their true selves or their base values. Great book, and I can't wait to read the next one! "

"3.49 stars for this book<br/>0 stars for the series<br/><br/>Edited to add: The overall story of the trilogy is so terrible I can't even recommend watching the HBO rendition anymore. For a review of the series, see my comments on book 3, The Amber Spyglass. Below is my original review of this, the first book in the series.<br/><br/>On it's own merit, I really can't say that I recommend this book. The writing is concise but the plot comes off as a series of events lacking any real meaning. I want to excuse it by saying it was written for 11 and 12 year olds, that it's dated. But I can't justify the failure. If I hadn't seen the HBO rendition I probably wouldn't have finished the book. <br/><br/>Because HBO did an amazing job of following the story but also of fixing the literary breakdowns. Whoever wrote the screenplay made some brilliant craft moves: collapsing side characters into a meaningful story arc, showing rather than telling us just how disturbing everyone and everything is, even giving a sense of believability and import to book two. Yet they couldn't quite make up for the lack of substantive world- and character-building in this text. Even the "controversial" content here was weak.<br/><br/>Over all it's imaginative but two dimensional and ultimately forgettable."

"#fantasy #scifi #youngadult #otherworlds #action_and_adventure #social_themes #religion_and_spirituality "

"Honestly I loved this book until the end. Very intriguing and interesting. I listened to this as an audiobook on Libby and there were different voices for each character so it was like listening to a movie. 10/10 for that. However, the ending was just weird and brought down the climax in a disappointing way, almost like it never reached the climax. Maybe I feel this way because of things I heard about it before I read it, but overall loved the whole story except the ending. I’m excited to read the rest of the series!<br/><br/>Other notes **POSSIBLE SPOILERS**<br/><br/>I liked the way the main character was written. It always bugs me when main characters make a bunch of stupid decisions when the right decision is right there in front of them, and a normal person would choose the correct thing. This book wasn’t a series of people doing stupid things and screwing everything up constantly, which I appreciated. Instead, the main character was pretty smart, in my opinion, and the people she was surrounded by were also smart and strong as well. Even though they made sensible decisions (given the information they had), it didn’t leave out suspense. The bad things that happened were generally out of their control and they got out of those situations in equally sensible ways. I liked seeing how it all played out!"

"I may be in the minority, but I didn't like this book. I couldn't relate to any of the major characters. By far the most interesting character was a mad bear king, but he only has a bit roll."

"Gonna be honest, I kinda liked this book better when I read this as a kid. The whole series is great don't get me wrong, and I did finish this in like 7 hours (because I have no life and this book needed to get back to the library) I still think I liked this book better when it came out, I'm still rereading the series because I'm gonna read 'The Book of Dust' series afterwards since the new book is or has already come out and I need to read the first one first. But yes, book one complete, book 2 starts soon. I need to go to bed :P"

"DNF"

"Great story, concept and worldbuilding"