The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)

What an interesting world this story presented! Lyra was an interesting, strong character, and her personality shone a lot throughout the story. I feel like I would need some guidance while reading this book if I was Lyra's age while reading it because some of the concepts are pretty lofty, but it's been quite interesting, especially coming from my background in Theology!

I'm going to have to read the next couple of books as soon as possible, because the story and concepts presented were pretty compelling. I really want to learn more about the world, and I have a feeling that the author has just about every concept neatly organized and ready to dole out in the next books.

This book was pleasantly subversive, with characters I found myself really rooting for and against, as appropriate. I found myself wondering whether the main characters were going the right way, or whether it would be revealed that they were totally wrong about everything and messing the whole place up.

That said, I made a bad choice in reading this book after the movie came out, when so many other people were reading it and discussing it. I think it might have been a five-star book if I hadn't run into spoilers, which really robbed me of a lot of enjoyment of it.