The Golden Compass - Book One of "His Dark Materials"

I started the BBC's top 100 books to read with the trilogy: "His Dark Materials." The first book is The Golden Compass. I originally saw the movie and thought the movie was beautiful and truly steampunk, which made me happy. But after reading the book there was so much that was in the book that wasn't in the movie that it upset me. After watching the movie again, yesterday, after finishing the book, I was sorely disappointed. No spoilers in the post - don't worry! First complaint - Mrs. Coulter was described as this beautiful, perfect dark haired woman. In the movie they replaced this character with Nicole Kidman in all her blonde glory. I found it disconcerting that their idea of beauty was a blonde and not a brunette as the book called for. Second - they foisted a great deal of the showing into the mouths of the characters. The descriptions in the book of the battles and adventures and the journey itself, could have been shown instead of told. Third - the book is horribly out of order. There was such a sense of getting through the story in a certain amount of time made them truncate story lines and end the movie before the book had actually ended. Fourth - the movie felt unfinished. In the book there was a satisfying conclusion that set you up for the next book but would make it alright if you stopped reading there. I don't think anyone would through. The end of the movie felt as though there was going to be a sequel to tie up any loose threads. No sequel, plenty of loose threads. Fifth - on a personal note, the actress who played Lyra Belacqua was horrendous. She is an unlikable character in the book but the actress was unlikable because she could not act not just because the character was unlikable. Those are my thoughts and review of The Golden Compass movie. The book was thrilling and exciting and I had trouble putting it down to get on with the other parts of my life. It was nice to be moved by something and to be in the grips of a book again. My rating scale will be 1-5 stars. You can guess how that will work. If I give a book a negative number it means don't even bother saying the book's title much less traveling to the library, let alone purchasing it. I give The Golden Compass ****. Happy Reading