I remember reading this book and *loving* the concept as a kid. Being one of those introverted nerdy kids without a lot of friends (if any, depending on when I was reading it), the idea of having my soul outside my body as an independent sentience was super attractive. But this book has always been the only book in the series I could get through. Given it is now a TV series and I kept seeing it come up in bookstagram, I decided to revisit the series by audiobook. 

The book tells the story of Lyra, a young girl in a world very much like our own, but one where people’s souls exist outside their bodies, taking the form of animals. As children, these daemons, as they are called, can switch form, but at the onset of puberty, daemon take one form and no longer switch. Growing up in Jordan college, the niece of a wealthy, but absent benefactor to the college, she becomes embroiled in a mystery, and sets off to the north to rescue her uncle. Along the way she meets rich and dangerous women, friendly but maligned Gyptians, witches, and armoured bears.  

I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook. It had been long enough since I last read the books that most of it was new to me. I generally knew the direction of the book, but definitely forgot the actual steps of the plot, and was kept on the edge of my seat the whole time. Very unusually for me, I even got choked up at one scene (I do *not* cry at books). Listening also as an adult had me better understand the anti-church rhetoric used throughout the book. Of course, a book about a world where souls were outside the body is intrinsically out-of-line with most religious doctrine, but there is much more than that reading as an adult.

I still haven’t moved on to The Subtle Knife, I guess His Dark Materials isn’t really high on my priorities list. But overall I liked this book, and I’ll get to the next one when I get to it.