I recommend this to patrons constantly and always with the same caveat, that the first book and the third book are doing very different jobs. The Golden Compass is a proper adventure, Lyra and Iorek and the alethiometer, and it moves. By the third book, the talking-animal daemons have mostly given way to actual theology, and there is a LOT of talking, I did the audiobook for this one, the version with Pullman narrating alongside a full cast, and even with good production behind it there were stretches that felt like a seminar rather than a climax.

That said, I don’t think the shift is a mistake exactly. Pullman is not being subtle about what he’s arguing with, organized religion, authority, the whole architecture of it, and a book that’s been building an anti-authoritarian argument since book one owes you the argument stated plainly by the end, even if plain isn’t always dramatic. The knife in book two is the more interesting device to me structurally, a way to physically cut between worlds that mirrors what the trilogy is doing thematically the whole time, letting you see the same cosmic fight from wildly different angles.

Where it lost a half star from me is the ending’s density, so many threads get resolved in a compressed stretch that the order of resolution feels almost arbitrary, everything is true to the characters but the traffic jam of endings undercuts some of the individual moments. I’ve had patrons tell me the ending brought them to tears and others tell me it felt rushed, and I think both are right depending on how much emotional runway you need for a goodbye like that one.

Four stars for the trilogy as a whole. Read it for Lyra, stay for the argument Pullman is actually trying to have with you by the end.