I'm enjoying "Lirael" way more than Sabriel. Though I still want to make fun of it just as much, now I'm getting why it's fun. I can't ignore the stupid, but fun is in there anyway.
The book opens with a swirl of psychic priestess boarding school angst as the 14 year old orphan Lirael spirals into suicidal despair on her birthday because she doesn't yet have "the Sight". When she climbs up a thousand stairs to the top of the mountain glacier to throw herself off... instead she gets caught up there by the head priestesses, who assign her to be an apprentice Librarian because she doesn't have any talent and is shy. lo & behold she turns out to be a genius powerful magician and learns everything about the library and hacks her way into all the secret doors & etc.
The only thing missing really is some detail about how she is considered ugly because of her nose-freckles or her heavy red hair and unusual green eyes and being too skinny - but really I don't miss it and the book is just .001% better for not having it. The key thing is the detail of the angst and self-pity and envy as Lirael imagines the triumphant 11 year old classmate who just got the Sight today and wil be crowned with a moonstone tiara in the warm Great Hall right at the moment when she herself will be flinging herself off the top of the glacier to an icy despairing death. Oh yeah! And then - all the ways she decides to lie about nearly everything and invents elaborate cover stories.
I'm in the middle now after reading the bit about the Prince who is clearly her destined lover - battle with zombies, journey into death, a few moments of trench warfare, and some confused stuff about boarding school and cricket - Oh just one example of the badness. why is his sister described as his "fourteen-month-older sister"? WTF? do we care? just say she's a year older? is the 14 months important? And when the zombie grabs that other kid by the neck and "shook him like a milk shake"? I had to look twice - snake? shake? Does anyone shake a milk shake - no - they mix it in an electric mixer as far as I know - And who or what would describe shaking something by the neck to kill it as "like a milk shake" - so dumb. Details like this drive me insane.
Anyway now back to Lirael who suddenly is not only a happy though lonely librarian genius of magic but has a superpowered magic dog companion and also now she's 18 and can change into an otter, a bear, and a barking owl. you heard me. a barking owl.
Hahhahaaha!
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Oh I spoke too soon about the lack of physical description and "un"beautifulness and not fitting in:
In just a few minutes she would be plain Lirael again, with her long, unruly black hair so unlike that of her blond- and brown-haired cousins; her pointy chin so much sharper than their round faces; her pale skin that would never tan, not even in the harsh sunlight reflecting off the glacial ice; and her brown eyes, when all the Clayr had blue or green...oh horrors! a pointy chin! waaaaaah! how can she not die of shame! no wonder she hides behind her hair all the time in the depths of the library! Oh excuse me... the "Library", since everything in this book has Capital Letter Disease.
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