Jessica's Review: Golden Compass

Since becoming a part of the online book lovers community (LibraryThing, blogs, etc), I have become aware of many YA (Young Adult) books that I never knew existed. The Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman is just one YA series that that has been made into a movie. I strive to read the books before I see the movie (we'll have to discuss that another time), and I think the movie should be released on DVD soon, so that's why I read this book.

Ok... so this is a story of a young girl named Lyra and a world where every human has a daemon which is an animal who basically is like a pet with part of their human's soul. Lyra lives in a world where bad people "the gobblers" are kidnapping kids and performing the worst crime imaginable. They are seperating the kids from their daemons and harnessing the power the separation creates. Lyra aims to find the place the kids are kept and free them.

There was so much buzz around this movie when it came out because there was a lot of church bashing (supposedly) portrayed in the movie. I say supposedly because I have not yet seen the movie, and I have not finished reading the trilogy. There was very brief mention of "church" keeping people from doing things, but I just don't remember it being more than just a few comments in passing.

I wasn't very impressed with this book, but with all the epic, YA, fantasy books becoming movies, I thought I would attempt to read some. I guess with all the hype surrounding the movie, I thought the book would be so much more... I just didn't see it. I guess I'll have to read the remainder of the trilogy to figure out the true message in these books.

What were your thoughts on The Golden Compass? Do you read any other YA epic/fantasy books like Spiderwick Chronicles, Chronicles of Narnia, etc? This was my first foray into this genre (beside Harry Potter which I love of course!)