Lirael

by Garth Nix

Info

Date Finished: 2/1/2026

First Sentence: It was a hot, steamy summer, and the mosquitoes swarmed everywhere.

Last Sentence: 'And as always, I obey.'

Companion Album:

New Cover

A book cover for "Lirael" by garth nix on a solid, bright sky blue background. Centered is a hand-drawn ink illustration of a young woman with long hair and glasses standing next to a dark dog, both enclosed in a warm, textured red-orange halo. The author's name is printed in a simple lowercase serif font at the top, and the title "lirael" is displayed in large black gothic script at the bottom, subtitled "sequel to Sabriel."

A Few Thoughts

Lirael made me realize I'm a real sucker for the Sabriel series. It has its pacing issues, but I loved it despite them. Nix wrote Sabriel to be a standalone story, only later deciding to expand the world with Lirael, and it shows.

This book builds out the world, introduces a larger cast of characters, and sets up the main conflict. The story lines are personal: learning to be brave, dealing with well-meaning yet harmful familial pressures, moving beyond childish ideas of who you should be and accepting who you are, and so on.

Good stuff for a YA novel, but the book seems to end at what should be its mid-point. The larger conflict barely got started.

Related:

Abhorsen

Cover Notes

The Sabriel series has some of my favorite covers ever in YA, so I feel more bad than normal redesigning this one. So I decided to do something totally different, taking heavy inspo from an illustration from Tommy Brentnall (the green one near the top). Love his work! Check out more of his stuff here. I used Sketchbook to draw the illustration itself. I'm not sure the vibe fits the book, but it was fun to make.