His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

I'm about halfway through the final book in the trilogy - The Amber Spyglass.

And I'm stopping.

I hardly ever stop a book. Even if I don't like it, even if I'm finding it painful or brain numbing beyond words, i still push my way through. I'm stubborn like that.

But I'm stopping near the middle of The Amber Spyglass.

But this time, it's out of love.

I've only done this with 2 other series.

The Lord of the Rings. It wasn't until I heard that they were being made in to movies that I went back are read the final chapters in the third book. I started them when I was in 6th grade... what year was that? Somewhere around '88 I think. And I read through all but the last few chapters . I read enough to know how the story ends, but I couldn't bring myself to read the very end.

The other series was Stephen Kings Gunslinger Series. If you've read this series, you know the part I'm talking about. The "Dear Reader" part in the last chapter where the author himself suggests that you stop right here. I took his advice.

I'll reread that series many times too, but unless there's an imminent movie or some other method of forcing the ending upon me in the near future, I won't read that final portion.

And the His Dark Materials trilogy joins those ranks. I've been reading them through in one large feast. And I'm loving them. But I'm not ready for the series to be over.

So I'm going to put the last book aside for a while. The movie is coming out on December 7th, 2007. So sometime between now and December 7th I'll pick the book back up and finish it. But for now, I want to let Lyra, Will, and Iorek just exist in my imagination. Suspended in my mind, moving forward in their journey, but not yet at the end.