Coraline
Coraline
By: Neil Gaiman
Can you believe this is the first thing I've ever read by Neil Gaiman? I can't, but that's only because I can't find my copy of Anansi Boys, so I went for Coraline.
Creeeeeeepy.
After reading reviews of this tale on other sites I was a little worried about starting it. I am not a horror/scary book/movie kind of girl. I like my books/movies with action, adventure, comedy and romance. Nothing scary. I do not enjoy freaking myself out, there are enough scary things happening every day (just watch the news). That said, I still picked up Coraline.
Coraline and her parents live in a flat. Her parents both work from home and Coraline is bored. School isn't starting for a few weeks and her parents just don't pay enough attention to her. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are about her only company, and they are retired actresses (with fantastic names!). Other than that there is the weird old man upstairs who tells 'Caroline' that she is invited to see his musical mice perform. Yes, he is training mice to sing and play music. Anyways......
There's a door in their flat that doesn't lead anywhere when her mother shows it to her. It's all bricked up. There's something about the door though.....so Coraline opens it herself and discovers a passageway into a home just like hers. Except that it's not just like hers. Sure, the furniture is the same and the right people are there, but something is wrong. When Coraline meets her 'mother' she knows things aren't right. There's something wrong with her mother's eyes and Coraline takes a minute to place the problem. Her other mother and father's eyes are black buttons. And she's offered to give Coraline her own black button eyes. Coraline does not want them, minor drama ensues and Coraline finds herself locked behind a mirror, with 3 children, kind of. I'm not even going to get into that part, but suffice it to say, Coraline is in grave danger, her other mother likes to play games with people (that she always wins), the talking cat is quite curious and her parents are in peril as well. There's just a little bit going on here!
This book is a little spooky/creepy. I agree with Terry Pratchett's blurb on the back cover of my copy about how, "you will never think about buttons in quite the same way again." On the other hand, I found it to be a little predictable. The ending was a give-away from the get-go for me, but I still enjoyed this book, especially since I don't think I will be having any nightmares about it. Oh, and one of my favorite parts is when Coraline learns that the man upstairs actually has a name, and that she thinks she'd like to use it. And no, I'm not telling!
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