Book suggestion with hook and link to the audiobook: narrated by Tim Curry.

Discussion of traumatic experiences in Lirael, by Garth Nix. (Audiobook here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66A4Y80EfnI&t=16876s and is narrated by the dulcet tones of Tim Curry.

"I think I'm well enough to ride," said Sam, wrinkling his brow. "I mean, I don't know whether I'm really hurt."

"The bandage can come off now." Said Touchstone and he began to untie it. As he unwound it, he lowered his head still closer to Sam and whispered. "You have not been badly hurt in body, Sam, but I feel that you have suffered an injury of the spirit. And that will take longer to heal because it is beyond my power to repair."

"What do you mean?" Asked Sam, anxiously, he felt very young all of a sudden. "Can't mother fix it up?"

... "No, I would guess that it is a result of your going into death unprepared and unprotected. Some small fragment of your spirit has been leeched away. Not much, but enough to make you feel weaker, or slower. Basically... less than yourself. But it will come back. In time."

~*~

This is a book that starts off with a 14 year old halfbreed character living in a seer society without the Sight. She goes to kill herself and wanders into a future for herself as a librarian and through that she learns the very things that make her different are the sources of her abundant strength.

The world these characters live in is one of old magic; where necromancers weild free magic to bind the dead to their will; against the great charters which bring order (and charter magic) to the world. The abhorsen is a hereditary role that fuses free magic and the charter. They wield the necromantic bells and free magic of necromancers... but they do so to bind and send the dead back to death--to fight necromancers.

Lirael is technically book two; but I think these books are best read two, three, one.

I suggest this book to everyone, but especially to people struggling with mental health issues, traumatic experiences and that very very human feeling of 'not belonging as we are'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGIi6Kyu4S0 - Sabriel (Number one)

Looks like Abhorsen isn't on the youtube. It's the continuation of Lirael.