Frogkisser! by Garth Nix (review)

Nix fans will rejoice that a new novel is here, and it’s a fine one, featuring creepy sorcerers, clever girls, and one of the best talking dogs around. Anya’s got a terrible stepstepfather (the husband of her stepmother), a flighty sister who’s destined to be queen someday, and a frog that Anya thinks is her sister’s newest beau. When Anya kisses it using magical lip balm, however, it turns out it was an enchanted man, all right, but the wrong one. Now Anya’s got to head out into the world to find more ingredients to make the rare lip balm, since there’s a lot of frogs hopping around and she fears many of them are enchanted humans. While on her quest, Anya begins to see how oppressed her kingdom is, just how evil her sorcerer stepstepfather has actually become, and, reluctantly, how she is needed for much more than just kissing some amphibians. Ardent, a talking dog and Anya’s ferociously loyal companion, is an amusing sidekick, as he is wise and doglike in equal amounts. The whole cast is memorable—Nix’s talent for startling and cleverly drawn characters, even very minor ones, is in full force here. Anya’s significant resistance to a future that will mean hard work is understandable, and it’s amusingly poignant how much she’ll do to avoid it, even while readers will know from the start that she is destined for a much bigger fate than the one she imagines for herself. An epilogue wraps all loose ends up in a tidy way, dashing some hopes for a sequel, but there’s plenty left to say about Anya, royal Frogkisser and future queen.