Great prequel to Abhorsen trilogy

This is a good story. Sad, but very much in the spirit of the first Abhorsen trilogy.
Book well read, although I miss Tim Curry.

17 people found this helpful

why

Clariel, why you gotta be so dumb?

I miss competent abhorsons.

I miss Tim Curry. only he can do the true mogget voice.

3 people found this helpful

LOVED THE BOOK -- HATED THE NARRATOR

Garth Nix is one of mine and my family's favorite authors.We spent many a car trip listening and relistening to The Keys to the Kingdom and his stories of the Old Kingdom. Another adventure in the Old Kingdom has been eagerly awaited by my family for years. Now it's here and Audible ruined our experience by choosing a terrible narrator.Graeme Malcolm does sound a bit like Tim Curry, so perhaps that is what they were going for, but his pacing when reading the narrative was awful. I felt like my ears were on an audio roller-coaster.

11 people found this helpful

Return to the Old Kingdom in an inverted YA novel

The original trilogy of Old Kingdom novels are some of my absolute favorite "young adult (but really for adults)" fantasy novels. The world building is terrific, the characters wonderful, and the writing style helps bring everything to life with appropriate mystery and majesty. In this new novel, Nix finds his inner George Lucas, presenting a prequel explaining the background of a character in the original series, though to much better results than Lucas achieved.The return to the Old Kingdom is welcome, and this book has some very clever elements that I won't reveal so as not to ruin surprises, but it never quite hits the heights of the prior three books.

Part of both the cleverness and slight difficulty engaging with the book is is due to the fact that it turns many of the tropes of YA fantasy novels on its head - the main heroine is asocial, not interested in romance, and generally aloof. But that isn't all. The book is full of YA tropes: we are taken early on to a magical academy full of potential enemies and allies (obvious shades of Hogwarts) or we are introduced to Parents Who Don't Understand the Heroine (shades of every YA book ever) or we are made aware of the character's special destiny. But the book turns every one of these tropes on its head, in ways that are sometimes satisfying, but also occasionally off-putting. Still, it is never boring, and I very much enjoyed the experience.

The reading is great, and, if you have read the other Old Kingdom books, you should certainly read this as well. Otherwise, you really, really should read Sabriel now - it is excellent, and, in its sequels Lireal and Abhorsen, sets up mysteries that Clariel answers, even if not always in the most ultimately satisfying way.

29 people found this helpful

All Free Magic and No Charter

What did you like best about Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen? What did you like least?

It was fun to see the Old Kingdom before its demise. You got a better view of the world beyond the wall than you had without reading Clariel. What was mainly lacking was Clariel herself. She was an angry teenager who didn't seem to really care much about anything or anyone.....accept the Great Forest. Which you hear about a lot in this book. She had the ability to go berserk but that was really about the only interesting thing about her. We had Sabriel, Lirael, Mogget, the Disreputable Dog, and multiple Clayr that made for such cool and powerful characters that I couldn't help but feel let down by this character. It didn't explain either how she really became Chlor of the mask either. It gave us the beginning of the path she started down and then left the rest up to the reader, which is ok but this is a character that I wanted much more detail on.

Would you recommend Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen to your friends? Why or why not?

Yes, because it is an Abhorsen book. There were some very fun scenes and it gave some clarification regarding Free Magic beings.

Which character – as performed by Graeme Malcolm – was your favorite?

Moget of course.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes, I would see it. I would be much more interested if Sabriel were turned into a movie.

7 people found this helpful

Very difficult to hear at times

Malcolm's performance was very difficult to hear at times, especially when he used a very low, soft voice. I had to replay parts several times -- and still couldn't make out the words.

Still, I liked the book. I thought it a very good exploration of Clariel's character and the decay of a society.

If you are looking for the same kind of upbeat story line that Sabriel and Lirael had, however, look elsewhere. It's a pretty dark story.

4 people found this helpful

Clariel is an amazing heroine

Clariel is a truly unique YA heroine. As a character study it is almost as if she falls somewhere far down on the autism scale and simply has next to no ability to connect with her own feelings; and yet, in the end, her single minded focus saves the kingdom. The book is fantastic and is nothing less than I would expect from the most wonderful and creative Garth Nix.

Sometimes I want to refute some of the more shallow reviews of books when I think the reader/reviewer missed the point of the book entirely; and that is the case now, but I am not going to except to say the that Clariel's references to the forest didn't bother me at all and were entirely in keeping with her rather aspebergerish personality.

6 people found this helpful

Dissapointing

I struggled with this book after thoroughly loving the first three books. i spent the entire book frustrated with the main character

1 person found this helpful

didn't love it

still trying to figure out what was the point of going back 600 years instead of 200 years (when the touchstone events happened). I guess I have e to read the next book to find out.

1 person found this helpful

A bit slower than the others

From the title of this book it is obvious from the beginning to Clariel will become. However, her continued reluctance into that role is kind of frustrating. I don’t feel like this book needed a happy ending which seemed contrived and a little forced. I would have preferred this book to explore more in detail of her descent into free magic and her desire to be a free magic sorcerer. Since we all know the outcome of this book, time would have been better spent exploring the journey versus continually reinforcing the reluctance. As it was, Clariel was not particularly likable nor was she particularly unlikable but rather just a frustrating cautious character who is so unsure of herself that the reader became unsure of her too. However, I did like the snapshot of the world 600 years before the main storyline. It was an interesting take with the attitude toward a charter magic and the Abhorsens and various other groups. Bel was my favorite character for sure.

1 person found this helpful