The Amber Spyglass/Philip Pullman

The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials, book 3; Philip Pullman; YA (sort of) scifi-fantasy-quantum-religious-revolution-mishmash, 518p

So, okay, it took me a while to get through this last installment of HDM, because the last quarter or so is so entirely heartwrenching that I cry, pretty much nonstop. I cried when I first read it at fourteen or so, and I cried the other night, sobbing like a child. I have no shame about this. It's a fantastic emotional journey, very much about the (necessary) pain of growing up, and besides that it's full of really fascinating science and a very, very scary descent into the underworld. This series is a brilliant example of the hero's journey archetype, and in the end it can't be anything other than uplifting, the way Pullman has set all the pieces in motion. Also, in the end it's incredibly tragic. But upliftingly tragic. That makes sense somehow on the page, even if I'm less than coherent in my review.
At some points I felt like the author had so many storylines going that he was unable to really wrap all of them up effectively, some characters got short-changed, but at the heart of the story, it's come to a beautifully satisfying resolution.