“'Above and ahead of them the Aurora was blazing, with more brilliance and grandeur than she had ever seen. It was all around, or nearly, and they were nearly part of it.”

Lyra Belacqua and her daemon Pantalaimon live untroubled in Oxford at Jordan College. But suddenly Lyra finds herself in the midst of an adventure when children, including her best friend Roger, are disappearing, her uncle is being threatened, she is getting a job as an assistent and gets an mysterious device.

Many years ago I watched the movie, Golden Compass starring Nicole Kidman and wasn’t really blown away by it. This year I discovered the show on HBO and stopped after loving the first episode to give this, magnificent illustrated, book a go.
This book completely swept me off my feet. It started of fast paced and action packed. It didn’t really told much about the worldbuilding or the way daemons work, but it was an interesting world with loads of characteristic personality’s like travelers, scholars, witches and lovely, but frightening, animals.
This story was a perfect example of the good versus the bad and had a lot of resemblance to The Chronicles of Narnia.
Pullman told in a interview that it was meant to be its counterpart. As Narnia resemblance the religious texts this was to supposed to be an exploration of institutionalised religion.
Because of these themes it did make me uncertain what to think of the story. I don’t mind to discuss these topics, but I wasn’t expecting it in what was supposed to be a MG or YA.
Nonetheless it was a very small part and I did enjoy reading this book with all its magic. I can’t wait to see how the story develops further after such a major cliffhanger.