Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > Sabriel

Very good YA fantasy! The adventures of Sabriel, an innocent young woman, and her run-ins with various types of dead, undead, once dead, sorta dead and should-be-dead people and creatures. Luckily for almost everyone concerned (except the forces of evil and the dead ones they control), Sabriel is by heritage and training a necromancer, with a fair amount of power over death. Unluckily, some of these once-dead and should-be-dead creatures have apparently killed Sabriel's father, the necromancer-in-chief or "Abhorsen," and are in the process of taking over the kingdom. It's up to Sabriel and her companions, a talking cat with mysterious powers and a once-sorta-dead (for 200 years) guy, to try to turn things around.



This is a well-written and enjoyable fantasy, occasionally a little on the grim and gruesome side, but still within the bounds of what I'd consider YA appropriate, at least for teens who aren't too sensitive. Garth Nix creates an intriguing and imaginative fantasy world.

This is also the first book in a series, but it doesn't leave you hanging off the edge of the virtual cliff. It works quite well as a stand-alone read. I haven't gotten around to reading the rest of the series, but they're on my "probably, sometime" mental list.

Content notes: Frequent battles with deadly creatures who sometimes resemble zombies. Some good characters die. The sexual content is very mild, but there's a scene where a character overhears lovemaking in the next room, and a somewhat *ahem* detailed description of a naked statue(view spoiler)[ who turns into an actual naked man, but that doesn't lead where you might be pardoned for thinking :) (hide spoiler)].