Sabriel by Garth Nix

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Listening Library; Unabridged edition (April 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807205567
• ISBN-13: 978-0807205563
• List Price: $33.00
• I finished listening to this audio book on April 4

So, I'd seen this one in YA collections and I was interested. But it was not until I saw the audio version read by Tim Curry that I had to get it. Friends and neighbors, I love Tim Curry, and he read this with gusto. Sometimes he rolls his Rs, not to mention pronouncing the word "lieutenant" with an F in it which gets me all worked up. And there's all these cool fantasy things for him to say so he sounds extra cool, but seriously, I would listen to him read the phone book.
The best part is that the story is super good too. It's about Sabriel, who had grown up at a boarding school, learning some magic, but nothing of the mysterious Old Kingdom beyond the wall. Her father is a necromancer and she discovers that he's trapped in death when he sends the tools of his trade, the sword and bells to her by means of a dead guy. Sabriel must travel across the wall into the magic and dangerous Old Kingdom and save her father. Once there she finds how little she really knows about the kingdom and her family. What she thought was her father's name, Abhorsen, she finds, is really his title, a bloodline and a responsibility. Now that he is trapped in death she is the Abhorsen. Not to mention that there is a terribly powerful dead monster-guy after her and the only guidance she has is a sardonic talking cat and a man who she frees along the way who has been imprisoned in wood for the last 200 odd years (might he be a handsome prince?)
I was so into this I sat in my own parking lot like a creepy stalker listening to it. Toward the end every place I went I was mad when I got there because I had to get out of my vehicle and stop listening. This is part of a series, so I will definitely be reading the next ones. I'm always mad when I finish stuff like this. Now I'm sitting at work, having just heard the exciting conclusion and I'm all daydreaming: Hmm, I wonder what Sabriel and Touchstone are doing now? Yeah, I'm a nut job, but I also think that's a sign of really good characters. I would read a book that was just Sabriel sitting around having dinner and cleaning her bells. There's a website for the book, but it won't tell you more than what I did. Dreamy sigh - I love YA fantasy books.
P.S. I swear I'm reading something from the list next. Cross my heart.