Is this actually good or just Reddit and 9gag tire garbage?

I had to force myself to get through all three. I suppose I should read some reviews to find out what it is people liked about this series.

>9gag

I remember back in the old days when that was the big bad reddit

>>9030898
It's good, but it's also a children's book. No reason to read it as an adult unless you literally didn't learn to read.

>>9030979
9gag was always supplementary, reddit is more insidious. At least the people who frequent 9gag are honest and unpretentious in their plebeian delights.

>>9030983
This.
It's good if you're 12.

>>9030984
That's what a 9gager would say.

>>9030983
Is this post satire?

>>9030898
Remember that one pseud kid from middle school? This was their favorite book.

>>9030898
I liked the first book, when it came out, but never felt any motivation to read the rest of the books.
Bought a very nice complete edition second hand, and reread the first book. Still liked it a lot, but again, didn't feel any motivation to read the rest.

Take it as you will.

Are we being raided?
/lit/ has always talked fondly of HDM.

>>9030898
Loved it when I was a kid. It heavily alludes to the Bible and Paradise Lost, but I was able to enjoy it for what it was.

>>9031136
It's probably that /pol/ bogeyman again.

>>9031132
Probably because the three books are separate stories on their own. The first time i read it I read the third book directly and it still made sense.

>>9030983
this, I read it in middle school but doubt it would sustain interest now

>>9030984
>>9030979
get back to gaia fags.

>>9031122
It's an honest statement of what I think, if that's what you mean.

>>9031136
Talking fondly of a children's book and recommending an adult read it aren't the same thing at all.

Also, obviously there's a substantial group of Christposters who wouldn't be fans.

>>9030898
We were meant to read it in school but we only got a quarter of the way through before our English teacher decided it was shite and decided we were reading Goodnight Mr.Tom instead.

>>9031339
Do you mean you read the 3rd one first? Are you retarded?

>>9031339
That's unimportant. If you really like the book in a series, then you feel a desire to read more, because you like it. The characters, the prose, the general tone, etc, etc. Whether the series is episodic or not, is mostly inconsequential.

it's fun. it won't blow your mind or turn your world upside down. I wouldn't call it children's lit...more all ages. I read it in college and recommended it to a girl I liked. ten years later and we're engaged now. pretty wild. true story.

>>9031440
How does this happen.
How do I live life?

I'm dying.

>>9030983
This

There's nothing wrong with reading YA
When you're 12.

>>9031339
Nonsense. They all form one story. Maybe there was enough recapping in the last book to understand what's going on, but that doesn't make the books independent.

>>9030898
Read all three as a kid and loved them. They were definitely the most thought-provoking books I knew at the time. If I reread them today I probably wouldn't love them but I'm pretty sure they would remain pleasant, if nothing else.

12 year-old me was a sobby mess at the end when Lyra and Will were separated - it was not fair! Story has some real interesting theistic elements, don't know how it holds up but I remember it being a real fucking step-up from shit like Percy Jackson or Eragon. Bartimaeus was GOAT too.

>>9031702
The ending had prepubescent me in a foggy daze for a few days, really good stuff. I haven't read it since then though. It also started a somewhat edgy agnostic phase, which I think really upset my father.

>>9031702
>>9031743
Will and Lyra's romance/connection made me p depressed knowing that I'd never find that in life.

>>9030898

>tire

>>9030983
>>9030991
>>9031362
>>9031470
17 year olds detected

>>9031702
>Bartimaeus
my demon

>>9031383
>Also, obviously there's a substantial group of Christposters who wouldn't be fans.

Are you imagining that Christian posters actually get triggered about shit like this and Harry Potter and the like?

Lol, just lol.

We aren't soccer-moms from Iowa living in 1990. Why would we give a single fuck about a random author's artistic vision for one particular series just because it doesn't agree with a Christian worldview? We wouldn't be able to enjoy 90% of literature if that was the case.

You need to dispel this notion of the "Christposter" bogeyman you have created right fucking now.

>>9031743
The romance part was unusually well though-out and didn't feel tacky at all. It worked perfectly for kids whose ideas were still pretty much formed by idealistic Disney movies - the ideal of some mystic subconscious connection turned me into that one insufferable guy who thinks he had to understand people instead of just craving validation.

>>9030898
Was pretty young when I first read them and loved them so I may or may not be biased. The last line of Northern Lights is one of my favourite lines in anything. They're very good for what they are but I dunno how much impact they'd have if you're not young when you first read them. >>9031702 ;_;

>>9032060
>You need to dispel this notion of the "Christposter" bogeyman you have created right fucking now
Doesn't seem that urgent to me, but OK, sure. I really just meant that I'd expect people to post fedora memes about it.

>>9030898
It's a fun read and has some neat lore and stuff but Pullman's hateboner for organized religion is really obvious, especially in the third book.

Also I have mixed feelings on implied sex between twelve-year-olds

>>9033923
>Also I have mixed feelings on implied sex between twelve-year-olds
literally the best part desuzoid

>>9033936
It's fine if its in anime and shit but if they're supposed to be 3D then I just feel like a pedo.

Will and Lyra's romance was surprisingly well-written though, the ending had me depressed for a while.

>>9033941
>Will and Lyra's romance was surprisingly well-written though, the ending had me depressed for a while.
That's why it was the best part. Their romance was so well done. Made my heart ache 2bh.

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Posting GOAT early 2000s YA

>>9033923
>Pullman's hateboner for organized religion is really obvious, especially in the third book.
It was an artefact of it's time.
People could get away with writing fedora tier diatribes in the wake of 9/11 and while the Bush and Blair administrations were in full swing. It all fell into place with the militant atheism of Dawkins and the rest. Hard to imagine anyone getting away with it now.

>>9032230
>The romance part was unusually well though-out and didn't feel tacky at all. It worked perfectly for kids whose ideas were still pretty much formed by idealistic Disney movies
only redeemable quality of the books

>>9034005
t. C.S. Lewis

>>9030983
Bullshit, children's literature is great.

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>There was only one enemy remaining; two if you counted God.

Really Phil??

>>9032060
This is a comfy, chill thread my man

>>9030979
Reddit is just Pseudo-intellectual 9gag.

>>9034274
kek

>>9033923
>implied sex between twelve-year-olds

What scene was this? Where can I read it?

>>9035710
somewhere in the second half of the last book

>>9030898
Even as a kid it struck me as really unfairly anti-religion, although I did enjoy it. I enjoyed things like Wizard of Earthsea a lot more.

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>>9030983
>>9030991
>>9031362
>>9031470

“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”


― C.S. Lewis

>>9030898
I remember really liking them as a kid, but I couldn't remember jack shit about them now.

First book was pretty good. 2nd and 3rd just became Pullman raging against Christianity.

>>9032230
>tfw no lyra gf
tbqh

>>9033998
>Mortal Engines
6/10 needs more city on city action

As an adult, it's not great. It's young adult stuff. If you need pages for leisure when you're growing up and trying to get more experience it's wonderful. The twist is even unpredictable sub 17 y/o. Usually.

Look, different stories are for different ages. Should you start reading this when you're 30? Absolutely not.

>>9037988
But it's not a fairy tale. I doubt anyone can tell the age it's aimed at by looking at the cover. You can read this in public and the layman doesn't know if it's Tolkein-esque thick nerd shite or if it's Lord Bunny and the Fuzzy Wumpkins.

Referring to it as young adult in this context just means that it is written for a less complex, experienced, and analytical audience. The plot is fairly common adventurestuff, even if the details in the artifacts and cultures are extraordinary, the environments well created, and the characters well developed. They just aren't doing anything exciting or new once you've read enough books. I have read the whole thing and remember it fondly, and it is written very well. It's quite ambitious even, for something aimed at children.

The main character, if I remember correctly though, is a little orphan girl escaping from a home with no parents to a home with adoptive parents that she chafes at before running away from home again to seek her destiny and be embraced by the mysterious and exciting wider world. It's very stars in your eyes, curious, and appealing to a youthful mind in specific. I hope you understand.

>>9038987
Well said. And the world itself is quite creative by any standards. The philosophy and metaphysics of it is nothing to be scoffed at. It makes legitimate analyses of the subjects at hand.

>>9031875
Like >>9038987 said, it's less an issue of "maturity" and more one of boredom with the simplistic style and content books aimed at a younger audience invariably have. If you're still enthusiastically reading things like this past the ages of say 12-15, there was some kind of serious deficiency in your childhood experience.

>>9037988
The issue isn't childishness or "immaturity" but the stylistic simplicity and overall lack of any interesting or sufficiently unique thoughts in books aimed at kids, who usually haven't read or experienced much. What a 12 year old might find to be riveting stuff is often banal to someone who's seen multiple examples of basically the same story with largely interchangeable characters and themes throughout the years.

>>9030984
>>9031379
Go back to ebaumsworld

>>9039058
Gb2albinoblacksheep

>>9039073
>>9039058
fuck off to newgrounds you nerds