Rewind Book Review

 Goldenhnd by Garth Nix

Audiobook Edition, narrated by Heather Wilds

Finished on 11/18/2016

Goodreads 

Genres: Fantasy, YA, Kickass Female Protagonist(s)

The End of the World has been Prevented, but now 1 Ancient Ghost has Returned. It’s up to 1 Junior Necromancer, 1 Northern Barbarian Girl and 1 Former Host of an Ancient Evil to prevent 1 Free Magic Horde from Sweeping Across the Old Kingdom of 5

Spoiler-tastic Review

This is the fifth and final (?) book in the Old Kingdom series, chronologically directly following the events in the book ‘Abhorsen’ but with characters featured in the prequel ‘Clariel.’

I’ve read a couple of reviews for this book by adult readers who read the previous books as a young adult, and they had negative reviews.  This is a YA book. Expect common YA tropes, like awkward teen romances and teens being placed in positions of responsibility which they can’t quite manage on their own. If you want adult tropes, you ain’t getting them here. Many old favorite characters return. Lirael is maybe 1/2 of the book’s POV. Sabriel doesn’t have a POV section, but she is featured too if you love her.

This book contains more Old Kingdom lore, something which after 4 books desperately needed fleshing out. This is why I liked this book so much, because we got to see what the world is like outside of the protection of the Charter. I loved the bad guys because they were simply *different* from the undead our heroes fought in previous books.

The characters in this book were pretty good, but they were all standard YA characters. Lirael and Sam are a young couple exploring a budding relationship, as was foreshadowed in the previous books and short stories. A new POV character, of the name Fering. She’s badass even though she’s not a Charter Mage. Chlorr starts the book as okay character, but becomes spectacular at the finale when we finally meet what became of Clariel.

What’s bad:

Minimal Ancelstierre. Not a deal breaker, but I liked the dichotomy of Ancelstierre and the Old Kingdom in the other books. I would have liked more Chlorr and more Clariel; she had an entire book named after her, but she played only a bit part in this book.