I completed this book in public, on the train ride home. I was ten minutes from my destination, and when I closed the cover, I nearly grabbed the closest fellow commuter and shouted, "Talk to me about Lirael." Instead, I whipped out my phone and posted an all-caps plea to the Internet. 
 Lirael is... wow, I can't even come up with the right word. It's wonderful and surprising; it's really good, and when you get closer to the end it becomes blow-everything-out-of-the-water amazing. 
 A little about our tale: Lirael is a Daughter of the Clayr, but she doesn't feel like it. She still hasn't received the Sight, a Clayr's true calling, and feeling pretty useless. So she gets a job in the Library, where she can be surrounded by books and not have to talk to anyone--the best of both worlds. 
 But with any grand adventure, this is not Lirael's fate. She doesn't know what she's meant to do, but the Clayr Saw her leaving, and leave she must. 
 I'll save you from my own rambling because I'll just tell you the entire story, but please read this series. Sabriel was good--I liked it a lot--but Lirael is precious to me, because she's an outsider and feels completely useless but she's not. And her revelation of self make me so, so happy.