Review: Coraline

Reviewer: Kelsey
Author: Neil Gaiman
Format: eBook
Pages: 162
Rating: 6 out of 10

This review, upon review, may contain some spoilery info and is mostly a rant about it's creepiness.

Summary (Thanks Goodreads): Coraline's often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures.

Gaiman has delivered a wonderfully chilling novel, subtle yet intense on many levels. The line between pleasant and horrible is often blurred until what's what becomes suddenly clear, and like Coraline, we resist leaving this strange world until we're hooked. Unnerving drawings also cast a dark shadow over the book's eerie atmosphere, which is only heightened by simple, hair-raising text. Coraline is otherworldly storytelling at its best.

What I Think: This book is the creepiest thing ever. The movie? Just as creepy! Button eyes? This is a children's book? Coraline, why did you go through the door? Look what happens when you don't listen to your parents! This is what you get! Chased by a hand off a lady with button eyes! See. I bet you wish you didn't steal that key, don't you?

A lot of weird stuff happens in this novel that is kind of fantastic (Fan-tas-tic: /fan'tastik/: adj. 1.imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality). It was hard to follow at some points but I loath to admit that since it's a children's novel. Whatever. 

I think that the writing and vocabulary was great. It's a simple read and it's becoming one of those novels that people just read to be up on what's happening in the world. It won't take you too long should you choose to endure the super scary story.