Nix, Garth. Sabriel. Australia: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. 491 pages. (Fantasy)Sabriel is a girl with an unusual father: he puts the dead to rest. One day when Sabriel is almost ready to graduate from school at the early age of sixteen, she gets a shadow messenger from her father. It goes to death and she follows it. It gives her the tools that her father used, seven magical bells and a magical sword. Sabriel realizes that he is either trapped in death or is dead. Whichever one, she sets off hoping to save him. When she crosses The Wall into the Old Kingdom, she experiences many difficulties. She also finds out that her father was an Abhorsen, and that she must now take on his responsibilities, like banishing zombie-like creatures. Convinced that when she resurrects her father, she will be free of these new obligations, she sets out to find him. She comes across a mysterious cat that has been advising Abhorsens for a lengthy amount of time. Another one of these strange discoveries is Touchstone, a young man that was frozen in time for two hundred years with a secret as to how he got there which might be the key to defeating the enemy that Abhorsens have fought for centuries. But, will Sabriel find her father in time to stop it?
This book was really excellent. I liked that Sabriel was so determined to relieve herself of her duties and to get her father back, but she was forced to eventually face what she must do. For almost the whole story, she tries to get rid of her responsibilities, but when she is told that she must step up, she does and realizes that it’s not really as horrible as she was making it out to be. I’m looking for the next in the trilogy, Lirael. It’s going to need to work hard to be as good as Sabriel.
Reviewed by: Funky Zebras19
