Garth Nix’s writing has improved a lot since Abhorsen and everything is so much cleaner and there’s more depth to the story. I’m still not sure how I feel about this book. It happened frequently and with almost every character, and it could be really jarring. But when everything else is told from Lirael’s POV and suddenly we’re launched into Sam’s head for one line that isn’t really necessary, it gets annoying. That line would’ve been totally fine if the scene had been in Sam’s POV.
For example, it would be a scene told almost entirely in Lirael’s point of view, and then all of a sudden Sam would make a face and there would be a line like, ‘Sam pulled a face, thinking of the time he had done something similar in the past and the results had not been as favourable.’ Throughout the first three books, there was one thing that bugged me to no end: the narrative constantly switched between the minds of different characters. This one had a lot more action in it, but I also felt like Sam was an even weaker character once he realised he didn’t have to shoulder the burden of Abhorsen life all by himself. This is almost on-par with Lirael, because those two books feel so closely linked. He suffered a pretty traumatic experience but I felt like a lot of the time spent with him was dealing with surface-level stuff rather than delving quite deep. Loved the library scenes and all of Lirael’s backstory but I felt like I could’ve either done with fewer scenes from Sam, or just more detail in those scenes. This was definitely my favourite book of the original three. World-building was fascinating and I did feel a good emotional connection with Sabriel, but I wasn’t really buying her romance with Touchstone because I assume a lot of it happened in the time they spent together off-page. I enjoyed this book, but it wasn’t quite as amazing as everyone had led me to believe. Okay! Time for another series review, which is definitely what’s going to be happening from now on when I read books too fast and forget specific details of each book.
Do not continue reading unless you are fine with being spoiled. Please be aware that this review contains some spoilers.
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