Northern Lights Book Review

Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman. Published in 1995 by Scholastic Books.

Northern Lights was a wonderful novel, and I enjoyed Pullman's writing style immensely. It was a captivating story; just enough mystery that you had to keep turning the page and see what happens next. The novel built to a dramatic climax which didn't stop at the end of the book, making me itch to read the next in the series. As the themes and plots behind the story began unravelling, it created an interesting double-meaning to the story, focusing on the hold our beliefs have on us. The storyline was wonderful, as was the way Pullman wrote which helped create familiarity with the main characters, Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon. It created a feeling of closeness to them, and made the book more intriguing and helped understand the characters better. I loved the concept of daemons, and how they represented one's soul and personality. Northern lights was a great novel because it captured many different themes in the book, such as innocence and the concept of growing up, and how it changes us. Pullman introduced the idea of Dust, which represented experience and maturity. It begins to settle on people through their teenage years. This was a huge factor in the book, as the connection to humans and their daemons was what made Dust settle. The Church was against Dust, as they thought it caused sin, but really it inspired consciousness and curiosity.
All in all, Pullman’s Northern Lights was a wonderful read, and I recommend the His Dark Materials series to anyone who loves books that make you think.