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Book Review
Aug. 18th, 2018 09:01 pmLirael
by Garth Nix
This is the sequel to Sabriel, picking up about 14 years after the first book ends. Sabriel and Touchstone have restored the Old Kingdom and are now its rulers. They have two children: Ellimere, who will be queen, and Sameth, who is the presumptive Abhorsen-in-Waiting. But the book isn't really about either of them. Instead, it follows the adolescence of Lirael, a daughter of the Clayr, a large group of seeresses who live in a northern glacier. However, Lirael has not yet gained the Sight, despite being well past the typical age for its onset. Instead, she becomes a librarian in the Clayr's vast archive, where she surreptitiously learns a great deal of magic and has several pretty cool adventures (including one set-piece that reminded me a lot of Bartok's opera Bluebeard's Castle. It is one of these adventures, on her 19th birthday, that leads Lirael to leave the Glacier in an effort to deal with a mysterious necromantic power threatening the Old Kingdom. along the way, she meets Sameth, who has run off in a hare-brained attempt to rescue his school chum from a terrible necromancer (it's a good thing he runs into Lirael).
I loved this book even more than Sabriel. Lirael is a nerdy loner who acutely feels the pain of not fitting in and finds a place in the library, so I related to her very deeply. A lot of the book is spent on character development, with the more exciting plot-driven elements only taking up the last third of the book, yet the narrative never felt unbalanced.
by Garth Nix
This is the sequel to Sabriel, picking up about 14 years after the first book ends. Sabriel and Touchstone have restored the Old Kingdom and are now its rulers. They have two children: Ellimere, who will be queen, and Sameth, who is the presumptive Abhorsen-in-Waiting. But the book isn't really about either of them. Instead, it follows the adolescence of Lirael, a daughter of the Clayr, a large group of seeresses who live in a northern glacier. However, Lirael has not yet gained the Sight, despite being well past the typical age for its onset. Instead, she becomes a librarian in the Clayr's vast archive, where she surreptitiously learns a great deal of magic and has several pretty cool adventures (including one set-piece that reminded me a lot of Bartok's opera Bluebeard's Castle. It is one of these adventures, on her 19th birthday, that leads Lirael to leave the Glacier in an effort to deal with a mysterious necromantic power threatening the Old Kingdom. along the way, she meets Sameth, who has run off in a hare-brained attempt to rescue his school chum from a terrible necromancer (it's a good thing he runs into Lirael).
I loved this book even more than Sabriel. Lirael is a nerdy loner who acutely feels the pain of not fitting in and finds a place in the library, so I related to her very deeply. A lot of the book is spent on character development, with the more exciting plot-driven elements only taking up the last third of the book, yet the narrative never felt unbalanced.
