Sabriel

As far as I can tell, the only time I had any fun while reading this book, were the rare moments when Nix managed to knock a good joke into the narrative when I least expected him to.

I'm at a loss to explain the popularity of this book. Most everything I've read this year has been leagues better than this... tale. The lead character is, at best, boring. And there are only two other characters (noteworthy) in the story - yeah, a grand total of three main characters. The cat was interesting for a while, but then it was made obvious that his story wouldn't be told in this book, and he / it became a decoration, for the most part. The third guy is the obligatory romantic interest for our just-out-of-school heroine - another flat and uninteresting character whose story never really gets explored.

And then there's the weird, and frankly senseless magic system. Charter magic which... er... comes from these huge stones (??? never really explained) and is somehow seen as wriggling glyphs once they're in place. Oh, and ringing bells, and whistling that controls another form of magic (??? again, never explained) Or are they both the same thing? I wondered at one point why, if the basis of their magic system was that elementary, more people in the story didn't know it (at least a little). Sabriel's world has the most quixotic magic system I've encountered in (my short-term) memory.

In other words, skip this one, go re-read Harry Potter. Or delve into Bartimaeus's tales. Heck, even Percy Jackson and his merry band of demigods is a better bet.