Rated 4/5
This was, I think, the second audiobook I've listened to in my life, and I really liked it! Tim Curry's fabulous narration brought an already exciting and visceral book to life. The worldbuilding was exceptional, and the narrative was balanced nicely between action scenes and meaningful character stuff.
A couple reservations: I wasn't crazy about the ending. Faking us out with Sabriel's almost death was awesome and entirely appropriate to the story, but the actual mechanism by which she didn't die - "Go back and have babies, Sabriel!" - was lame. Although oddly I wonder if this would have worked better on paper than in audio form.
I was also annoyed that Sabriel's finding Touchstone seemed to be, at the end of the day, a coincidence. Coincidences are acceptable, sometimes, in fiction, but actually having the characters fall into a hole and find plot felt a bit like a bad D&D campaign.
Generally, though, I really enjoyed it and will be reading the sequels!
