Northern Lights

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman.

I can certainly see why ~8 year old Brett liked this

Lyra Belacqua is a tenacious young lady who, despite her cautious daemon and noble birth, just wants to be a kid. Over the course of this first entry in the trilogy she lives out the dream of every child with an overactive imagination. From finding out her decidedly not-dead parents are famous, interesting people to befriending an armored polar bear and rescuing hundred of her peers from an evil research station, Lyra's bucket list is probably done at the tender age of 11.

I remember reading this when I was a kid, which unfortunately means I remember enough that none of the plot points really captured my attention. Despite that I did appreciate the quality of the writing; the dialogue isn't as quippy and vapid as a lot of other YA stuff and most of my issues with the decisions characters make can be explained by a relatively sheltered 11 year old making them.

Other characters are mostly pretty compelling and make reasonable choices given their establish motivations, another point of differentiation to more typical YA fare. The Gyptian leadership probably comes closest to straying from this by inviting an 11 year old girl along on their dangerous mission to assault a heavily guarded base in the North Pole; but some allowance must be made for that 11 year old being the protagonist and the only one who can read an extremely accurate and detailed magic 8-ball macguffin.

Probably my biggest issue with the plot so far is said macguffin, which coupled with Lyra's ability to innately understand it something which should takes months or years to scratch the surface of means she should essentially never lose or be in danger. Thankfully for my desire to read a book with an actual plot and for the welfare of a world not ruled by an omniscient pre-teen she doesn't realise how OP it is and no adult around her thinks to exploit the omniscient device which is shown actively trying to help the protagonist multiple times. Maybe later books introduce a reason to distrust it or something, but until then I'll just have to employ my well-worn suspension of disbelief.

After ending this installment on a literal cliffhanger Lyra follows her father to a city in the sky, with the small and reasonable aim of proving the mysterious elementary particle adults all believe is the original sin is actually benevolent. Judging by her successes in this book she's liable to actually accomplish it, and I'm keen to tag along for the ride.