I have to admit when I read on only the second or third page that Abhorsen has the power to raise the dead, my hopes for the quality of the story were significantly dampened because I feared that eliminating the finality of death would compromise the emotional depth of the story. (It's hard to empathize with a character if that character's never in any real danger.) I was pleasantly surprised to find that Nix headed off this potential weakness through the several means of placing the Abhorsen in frequent mortal danger herself (and making her implicitly unable to revive herself), of only allowing the dead to be returned to life as normal if they are rescued very soon after death, of giving the Abhorsen a moral imperative not to revive the dead (but instead a contrary imperative to lay the dead to rest), and of creating a realm between life and death where the Abhorsen can interact with the undead (but where the final realm of death is hidden even from him).

Nix's writing style gets on my nerves, as when he describes a figure leaping with "impossible leaps" or when he has Sabriel stand still numbly waiting for a pursuer to come for so long that another character has to give Sabriel a push to get her to run, and Nix then immediately adds "but Sabriel needed no urging." In cases such as these, Nix writes cliched phrases with no regard for their literal meaning, apparently expecting the reader only to pay attention to the figurative meaning they have gained through their over-frequent use.