Rating: 
Summary: "Does the walker choose the path...?"
Review: Although nineteen year-old Lirael is a Daughter of the Clayr, she has not been blessed with the Sight that is the birthright of every woman of that order. She feels alone and out of place among her sisters who are all blond and blue-eyed, where Lirael is dark-haired and pale. She is the outcast of the Clayr's Glacier and one day comes close to committing suicide. But this failed attempt marks the beginning of an amazing journey for Lirael. To take her mind off what she views as her defect, she takes a position as a librarian in the Clayr's vast library. There, along with her companion the Disreputable Dog, she studies Charter magic and explores the many forbidden areas of the library. One night, in a remote part of the glacier, she finds a set of panpipes, a mirror, and "The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting." When the Clayr find her they inform her that this is part of her destiny, to be a Remembrancer, one who travels into Death in order to see into the past. They also tell her about a vision that they have had, one in which the fate of the Old Kingdom lies in Lirael's hands. An ancient evil has been awoken and Lirael must set out from the only home she has ever known and find the young man who has caused this being to stir. Along with the Disreputable Dog, she leaves the Glacier and eventually meets Prince Sameth, Sabriel's son and Abhorsen-in-Waiting (who is terrified of Death). These two join together to find the young man, Sam's friend Nicolas, and stop this evil before it can destroy the whole Kingdom.
"Lirael" is an excellent sequel to "Sabriel" and in my opinion, is the best of the two novels. This is high fantasy that is at times reminiscent of Tolkien. And we get another strong female lead in Lirael. Unlike many readers, I didn't become annoyed by Lirael's self-pity. She never let in get in the way of what she had to do. Whereas many fantasy heroes/heroines seem to be fearless and unaffected by a troubled past, Lirael is a very human character. She feels inadequate and lonely (never having known her mother and father) and believes that she will never become a true Clayr. This only make her triumphs and the revealing of her true destiny more satisfying to readers. One feels that she is deserving of them. Although this is a long book (700+ pages) it never gets boring. The action really starts to pick up the last 200 pages and I hated for it to end. Now I'm looking forward to starting the last book in the trilogy, "Abhorsen."
Rating: 
Summary: Lirael, the let down
Review: I read all three books in the series and I was taken into a whole new world. The detail with which Nix writes his books is extraodinary. His ideas are ingenius. All of the time it must have taken to write this book has to have been worth it. I believe anything is possible and even though know this story can't be true, Nix makes it seem so real. I look forward to reading more of his work very soon.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than Sabriel
Review: I know I am in the minority, but I thought this one was better than Sabriel. I immediately fell in love with the Disreputable Dog and Mogget is in top form with his sarcastic grumpy self. Also, I thought that Lireal was a better developed character. We get to see her grow from an insecure little girl to a woman with fierce determination and courage.
I will dispense with the customary summary of the book since that has been done repeatedly already. I will only add a warning: If you start this book, make sure you have the next one handy because it doesn't end neatly. In fact, the ending was more or a less a cliff hanger.
Rating:
Summary: The best
Review: Lirael is the second book in the Abhorson Trilogy. This volume takes place many years after Sabriel. (15 years, I think) Lirael introduces the reader to the second (and last) heroin of this trilogy, Lirael, a daughter of the Clayr. The Clayr is a sister sect to the Abhorson line and a protector of the ancient knowledge of their magical realm. They have also been gifted with the sight, the ability to see into the future.
The whole book is really an intro to Lirael and her sheltered life. I mean there's a lot to write about when the main character is different than everybody else. The rest of the Clayr are blond outgoing beauties that get the sight around their twelfth birthday, while Lirael is a quiet brunette that is long overdue in the sight department. But being different isn't always a bad thing. If you're the exact opposite of the people that can see into the future well then wouldn't you see into the... *^-^*
And yes, Sabriel and Touchstone are in this book. I know it stinks that at the height of Sabriel's story it switches to another character, but it does leave room for the imagination! The Abhorson Trilogy is a must read if you like fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than the first one
Review: This book was a big improvement over the first one, Sabriel. The book has two story lines that run in parallel. The first line, about Sameth, son of Sabriel, suffers from some of the same problems as the first book. He keeps running into those masses of zombies ("Dead") all the time and when he's not outside, he's moping around his castle being picked on by his sister, which is better than running around outside with the zombies, but pretty tedious. The second line, about Lirael, is *much* better. Lirael is exploring this great library full of magic creatures and magic books. She's trying out all kinds of things and becoming more and more powerful. Granted she has a nasty case of depression, but she gets through it and builds herself up to be truly exciting. I think the sequence of Lirael in the library makes the book worth while. I could have stayed in that library forever. This is a bit of a spoiler, so you might want to stop reading at this point. Anyway, the bad thing is that Lirael gets out of the library and then she's out there with all those zombies and Sameth. And there are more and more of the putrid things. The more she kills, the more there are. It's the ultimate sisyphean task. This series is kind of like the story of a bunch of glorified exterminators who spend their lives ridding the world of disgusting and dangerous pests. Unfortunately, I was reading the book in a cockroach infested dormitory, which did not help.
Still, the book has good suspense, a real page-turner, and a lot of the stuff is very creative, not at all like other fantasy books. The land of death that Nix creates is very unusual. On the whole, I recommend the book. Warning: the ending is a cliff hanger. You might as well just buy the whole series together. It's not very likely you're going to be able to walk away from all this suspense without finding out what happened.
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