The Golden Compass

by Philip Pullman

The only reason I read this book is because the movie looked awesome, but when I watched it I was left confused and a little bit disappointed. Still, the book sounded like it would be intriguing. More or less, it was. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m no longer confused…

It was somewhat easier to follow because I’d already seen the movie, so I had good solid character visualizations (and with my diminished thought capacity these days, I appreciate that). The changes made in adapting the book to film made sense, and I enjoyed getting a deeper, fuller story by reading the book. It seems that I may actually have to read the subsequent books in order to answer a question neither I nor the main character of The Golden Compass currently know the answer to:

Seriously, what is Dust?

(My other question: since when is James Bond the bad guy? It makes me sad. {You need to have seen the movie and read the book to understand that, I think.})