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."

"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 "

"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"

"Great story, concept and worldbuilding"

"This is my favorite book of all time, and I guess my Mom first read it to me as a kid, and she picked it up based on the cover, so I think that counts 🫡 I've read Golden Compass and its sequels, always together, probably a good 10 times since then. I still love it. I'll read them to my kids if I ever have any."

"A darker shade of magic series !"

"decided to read the trilogy again after La Belle Sauvage and before the next Book of Dust book. So glad I did!"