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.