I’ve heard everyone, friends and strangers alike, rave about the Harry Potter books for years; I’ve watched all the movies so far, and clearly appreciated that there has to be a much more interesting, detailed universe to be discovered by reading the books. And yet I’ve never ever felt like opening one of them. Not curious in the least.

Now it’s been two days since I found out what The Golden Compass is about, and the book joined the Mass Effect novel at the top of my private Amazon wishlist (which I might make public for Christmas just in case, because that paperback costs as much as six ramen meals! outlandish!).

I used to wonder if I was more prejudiced that I thought about kids’ books, but that proves I’m not. For some reason I just don’t seem to care about a school for magic, and a goddamn persecuted orphan out to save the world with his friends; whereas a parallel universe where you have talking animals for soulmates… now that’s fucking awesome. Even if the story seems to be centered around another dickensian orphan — I can feel in my bones that she’s not going to be as much of a pathetic whiny victim as that annoying egomaniac wuss.

So I’m gonna have to avoid the movie. Which is a shame, considering: talking animal soulmates.