Your Humble Blogger hasn’t been blogging lately, I know. I have read a few books, so I’m behind on my Book Reports, although since I’m focusing my efforts on Monsieur the Vicomte, neither the books nor the Reports are likely to be interesting, since they are for the most part bathtub books, rereads without much effort.
One of those rereads is Sabriel, a lovely and dark fantasy Young Adult novel by Garth Nix. I hadn’t reread it since my first time through, and in between I had read its somewhat disappointing sequel (a story in two books called Lirael and Abhorsen, so I was actually not expecting to enjoy this one very much. In fact, I liked it a lot. He does a great job of evoking, rather than explaining, his magical world. The protagonist is nice to be around, and her Tremendous Powers are not, in fact, so tremendous as all that, and there are lots of good reasons why she can’t or doesn’t just use them in the first chapter to end the story. Not least of which is that she doesn’t know who the bad guy actually is for most of the book. Really, the plot is well-handled. And when it starts moving quickly, towards the end, which of course you want it to, it moves with a nice sense of urgency without neglecting to throw in a few surprises and evocative moments. Yes, the final chapter or three feel a bit rushed, but I much prefer that to a padding-filled, tedious dénouement that makes me glad to finally put the book down and be done with it.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.