Foz Meadows's Reviews > Sabriel

Sabriel by Garth Nix
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it was amazing
Read 2 times. Last read March 30, 2012.

** spoiler alert ** Somehow, I'd forgotten how awesome this book is in the years since I first read it.

Sabriel is a truly magnificent character. Though rightfully confident in her abilities as a necromancer, she's still able to admit that she doesn't know everything, and subsequently acts in awareness of her own limitations. She doesn't flinch from either accepting or offering help when necessary; and though she spends the vast majority of the book either alone or in male company, Nix still manages to ground her in a real and touching sorority by acknowledging her lifelong friendship with the other girls at Wyverley College, her connection to her sending-mother and through her brief empathy with the Clayr twins, Sanar and Ryelle. She's pragmatic and brave, but sometimes impulsive and a little haughty; her strengths are balanced by weaknesses, and as she grows into the role of Abhorsen, she grows in both confidence and awareness.

Touchstone, too, is beautifully written. His early servility and reticence are completely in keeping with his self-loathing over the death of his family, and though he starts acting, in Sabriel's words, like a real person once he starts to recover from his imprisonment, he never becomes imperious or condescendingly chivalrous, instead adopting his self-chosen position as Sabriel's sworn sword with a sense of duty, compassion, trust and fellowship.

The worldbuilding is excellent, the writing fluid and the plot engaging. And there's also lovely gracenotes of feminism and female sexuality: Sabriel's summoning of her mother-sending to ask about menstruation and sex ed; her initial embarrassment at Touchstone's nudity followed by acceptance of it once she realises he's a person who needs her help; and the glorious fact that Kerrigor is defeated only with the help of Sabriel's fellow girl-students and female teachers as well as that of professional (male) soldiers, with both men and women giving their lives in the final confrontation. The romance was subtle, realistic and beautifully done: no oohing and aahing over impossible physical beauty, but instead a gradual growing together of two exceptional people struggling to mend a broken world, with a gorgeously visceral, literally life-saving kiss thrown in.

I absolutely cannot wait to read Lirael again.
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Reading Progress

February 15, 2010 – Shelved (Paperback Edition)
March 29, 2012 – Started Reading (Paperback Edition)
March 29, 2012 –
page 105
28.61% (Paperback Edition)
Started Reading
March 30, 2012 –
page 180
49.05% (Paperback Edition)
March 30, 2012 – Shelved
March 30, 2012 – Finished Reading
March 30, 2012 – Finished Reading (Paperback Edition)

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