Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The Golden Compass

The reason I chose to read this book was because of the upcoming movie. Then sometimes I read a book and say to myself "How did I never hear of this book before now?" I felt this way completely when I read this book. Especially knowing that there is a movie coming out I was dumbstruck that I had never even heard of the book.

Now after saying all of that you know I loved the book, but it actually took me a little while to really get into the book. About the time when Lyra was traveling with the Gypsies I felt an uncontrollable need to read and read and read. I really think that the thing that pulls me into books are those that have great characters. If I don't like the character for some reason or another I have a hard time reading books. I usually like characters because of their actions or their humor or their character and Phillip Pullman was able to bring all of these things out in Lyra (with the help of her daemon, I personally think the fact that she has this addition helps a lot, and it makes me want one too). So once Lyra really set forth on her adventure I became hooked. I needed to know what happened to this poor girl with the most horrific parents ever.

I think you will love reading about Lyra's adventures. I am not a huge fantasy fan, but this fantasy is more in the real of dystopian (I think this is the word I am searching for) fantasy. It is more of a setting that could possibly BE at some point in our past or future. It is this type of fantasy that I find myself drawn to more and more.

So right now I am on the second book of the series The Subtle Knife and loving every word of it (except the title, but I am not done yet). Please let me know what you think of this great book.

2 comments:

tinylittlelibrarian said...

I find that it's the characters that get me into books, too. I definitely have a negative reaction to the book if I don't like the main character, but a friend in my book club found this to be a rather foreign concept - she can not like a character but still like the book. Different strokes, I guess.

I confess, I'm afraid of Phillip Pullman - he seems way too serious for me- and am a horrible YA librarian because I haven't read these books.

Mr. Nauton said...

I picked this one up because of the movie too -- the boys saw the trailer and were all "Cool, warrior polsr bears!" so I figured I'd make them read the book first... I was disappointed in the ending, but still really enjoyed it, and Santa now has to bring us the rest of the series...