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A review by ashley_mrose530
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.75
I'm sorry but I hated this book. I should have DNF'd it and I almost did but I was already at 62% and figured I might as well finish it.
I will say that the second half was better than the first and that's why I decided to keep reading it. The second half was much more adventurous and had a lot more going on to keep you interested.
Unfortunately, the first half lacked a lot. I found it so boring and the info-dumping was not helping that either. There would be whole pages of just exposition about the world or something that I mostly tuned out and seemed unnecessary. The time jumping was stilted and just weird. Most of the time it took me a while to realize that months had passed between one event and the next. I was so confused if I wasn't completely bored.
The writing style is definitely not for me. With a children's book, you have to expect more telling than showing and I would have been okay with that, but then there was the info dumping, the pages and pages of exposition, and the basically nothing that happened throughout the first half that made me question why any of that was in the novel in the first place.
I feel like this would have been a lot better if we had gotten the whole hiding-in-the-closet-during-the-meeting thing as a prologue and then did a time jump to when the action actually starts, that would have benefited the novel as a whole.
I was also really confused about the fmc's characterization. She seemed super smart, like even smarter than some of the adults, but yet she's never gone to school or had a tutor or anything. There's no way a kid just knows stuff and can put connections together like she could without having some form of formal schooling.
Anyway, this one was definitely not for me and I know that it's pretty beloved so I'm an outlier here.
I will say that the second half was better than the first and that's why I decided to keep reading it. The second half was much more adventurous and had a lot more going on to keep you interested.
Unfortunately, the first half lacked a lot. I found it so boring and the info-dumping was not helping that either. There would be whole pages of just exposition about the world or something that I mostly tuned out and seemed unnecessary. The time jumping was stilted and just weird. Most of the time it took me a while to realize that months had passed between one event and the next. I was so confused if I wasn't completely bored.
The writing style is definitely not for me. With a children's book, you have to expect more telling than showing and I would have been okay with that, but then there was the info dumping, the pages and pages of exposition, and the basically nothing that happened throughout the first half that made me question why any of that was in the novel in the first place.
I feel like this would have been a lot better if we had gotten the whole hiding-in-the-closet-during-the-meeting thing as a prologue and then did a time jump to when the action actually starts, that would have benefited the novel as a whole.
I was also really confused about the fmc's characterization. She seemed super smart, like even smarter than some of the adults, but yet she's never gone to school or had a tutor or anything. There's no way a kid just knows stuff and can put connections together like she could without having some form of formal schooling.
Anyway, this one was definitely not for me and I know that it's pretty beloved so I'm an outlier here.