When I first started this book I thought it might be a very rare case when the film turned out to be better than the book. Lyra really grated on me for the vast majority of this book.
A girl who finds it disturbingly easy to lie, left in an oxford college at an early age, not knowing who her real parents are.
Mrs Coulter was also rather disturbing in her apparent view that children are fair game for experimentation and didn't seem at all concerned at the body count.
She, though was nothing compared to Lord Azriel, who went one step further into stark raving madness and murder in a bid to make it to the other side.
Honestly, with parents like that what chance did Lyra really have??
I will persevere with the next book, surely Lyra can't get any more annoying - can she??