Northern Lights (His Dark Materials, #1) by Philip Pullman

 

Date finished: 19 September 2012
Review originally posted on Goodreads

I read Northern Nights by Philip Pullman in September. I really enjoyed the book, and continued to read the rest of the series. The story starts when the main character, Lyra, and her daemon, Pantalaimon,  accidentally see an attempt to kill her uncle, Lord Asriel. They stay hidden and overhear what her uncle says to some of the men at the college about Dust and his expedition to the North. Later she meets the wonderful Mrs Coulter, and it is arranged that Lyra will go to live with her. Before she leaves she is given a mystical device called a alethieometer, and told to keep it a secret from Mrs Coulter. For a while Lyra lives in the city with Mrs Coulter, and everything is great, until she discovers that her wonderful guardian is really evil. Lyra runs away, and is caught up in an adventure involving armoured bears, witches, gyptians, Gobblers, and the North in an attempt to rescue her best friend, Roger.

Lyra is a strong character, and changes throughout not only this novel, but the whole series. She becomes braver, and more accepting of what happens to her. She is a very good liar, and while usually this would be a bad thing, she manages to save her  and her daemon's skin by doing so.

Later on in the series you are told that the Church is evil, and what they call God is not really the Creator, but a being who wants to manipulate the human race.  I found this very entertaining, and accepted it as an even more brilliant part of the story.

What I most enjoyed was the magic/fantasy part of the story. Lyra's alethiometer tells her stuff she wouldn't normally know, and reading about the witches was very enjoyable. Also in Northern Lights there are different worlds, but it isn't until the sequel, The Subtle Knife, that we read about them, and the story moves in three different worlds.

The language was good - the story was well-written, although there were a few too many adverbs (which I dislike with a passion), and I didn't like that  some of the words were written in American spelling, even though the author is English.

All in all, I recommend this book to anyone who likes a strong female heroine, and doesn't mind negative views on religion.