By Garth Nix.
- Plot Summary (No Spoilers)
- Sabriel is in her final term at boarding school when she receives a package from a being who has crossed over from Death. She soon discovers that her father, the Abhorsen, is in danger, and journeys into The Old Kingdom in order to find him. Sabriel, like her father, can pass into Death and use seven bells to bind and defeat the Dead that attempt to come back into the world of the living to cause chaos. She soon learns that an ancient danger has arisen, and needs to find her father in order to save the kingdom.
- Type of Book
- Fantasy, magic, magical beings
- Age/Gender of Protagonist
- Sabriel is female and is almost 18.
- Sex
- Sabriel finds a life-like carving of a naked man, complete with penis. Sabriel thinks she hears people having sex in the next room over in an inn.
- Once character is revealed as a bastard.
- Language
- Occasional light profanity
- Violence
- There are many fights in the book between Sabriel and her allies and various Dead creatures, including re-animated human corpses, re-animated animal corpses, and powerful spirits. The fights include magic and physical fighting.
- Religion
- There is not a religion mentioned in the book, but Sabriel and others in the Old Kingdom can be baptized into the Charter, which is the system of magic that runs throughout the world. Their “baptism” as infants simply means they are later able to use the Charter magic. It does not have a concept of a god or God or any Christian meanings of baptism.
- Members of conservative religions may not like this book, since Sabriel and others can talk to, see, bind, and fight with the dead, the dead can come back to earth and take over corpses or move as spirits, and Sabriel and her family can actually enter Death, a realm with nine rivers and gates that spirits go through after they die.
- Politics
- There is a matter of who is the rightful leader of the Old Kingdom.
- Theme/Other Topics
- Duty, honor, doing the right thing regardless of the cost, self-sacrifice
- Review
- This is a very original and spell-binding book. You dive right in, and you don’t know most of what the characters refer to, but by the end of the book you forget that you used to not understand certain references. I find Sabriel very compelling as a character as she learns to take her place in her family line. The interaction of the Old Kingdom with the southern kingdom beyond the wall is beyond fascinating, and the whole idea of the Charter and the Abhorsens is deep and rich. There are further books in the series that expand upon it more. This book may be frightening for younger teens.
Sabriel
