Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
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Book Reviews of Coraline
Book Review: Hard to administer a grade for a child's book read by an adult, but...
Summary: 4 Stars
A children's book (12 and up), I read this primarily for its intriguing synopsis and its "easy factor". Even though I'd heard it was disturbing and much more mature than a kid's book, I wasn't quite expecting some of the elements that Gaiman introduced to his audience. For instance, a woman that sews buttons onto children's eyes, and who also gets rid of her husbands when she gets tired of them. I loved some of the themes the author approached, such as disposability, materialism, and the fallacies of love and obsession. Unfortunately, the themes were VERY lightly touched upon, and there were a lot of scenes that I wish had been expanded and described in more detail. There was too much repetition of ideas and words, but the originality of Gaiman's characters was spellbinding - most definitely a modern, if scary, fairy tale. But then again, most of the original fairy tales were disquieting in nature. (The sketch drawings interspersed within the text only adds to the intensity of the book). For kids, this is a beautiful story. For adults, however, it seems to be lacking.Book Review: Wonderfully Creepy
Summary: 5 Stars
Neil Gaiman does a few things many authors neglect to do when writing for kids:
1) He includes humor. This book had some great funny parts to balance out the scary bits.
2) He doesn't underestimate his heroine. Coraline is a kid, but that doesn't mean she's not resourceful and bright. She manages to match wits with an evil entity living in a parallel universe without some deus ex machina coming out of the blue to save her. Kids can empathize with her, but adults aren't alienated by her age.
3) It's creepy, but not *too* creepy. Gaiman strikes a perfect balance. He never goes overboard, but he doesn't assume his intended readership is too wimpy to handle some scary parts.
Besides all that, the novel is, simply put, engaging. The atmosphere in the book is wonderful and does a great job of setting the scene. All the characters are unique and portrayed well. The book moves at a very brisk pace.
I'd recommend Coraline to anyone, child or adult, looking for a good adventure story.
Book Review: Not just for kids
Summary: 5 Stars
A wonderfully imaginative tale that pulls you in and doesn't let you surface until the last page. It has a terrific setting, wonderful characters, and a great plot. I don't particularly think it's a scary novel (as it says in one of the reviewer blurbs on the front) but then again I've been reading horror novels since I was about 12. So your mileage may vary on that. And I don't think being scarier would have made it any better - it's the imaginative, not the frightening, aspects of this story that make it so compelling. The little girl is an amazing character. She's creative and resourceful and likable. The cat is a wonderful sidekick, filling out the 'good' side of the story very nicely. The evil characters are properly mean, and there's no attempt to justify or psycho-analyze why they are that way. Evil just is. And perhaps that's what is so very good about this story. As creative and well-written as it is, at the very heart of it there's just a simple children's story of good against evil.Book Review: Surprisingly, I liked the movie better
Summary: 3 Stars
fyi there is a little spoiler in this review
So, I took my daughter to see the movie cause my girlfriend LOVED the book. I thought the movie was great and I have enjoyed other books by Neil Gaiman, so I picked up the book. I love love love to read so I was excited. Unfortunately I was disappointed. Though it wans't terrible, I feel like the story just wasn't whole. I feel like the movie added all that was missing from the book. I found the book a bit hard to read and had to put it down at one point. I stopped reading it when Coraline goes back home after being in the alternate house to find her parents gone. She goes on about life saying things like "I guess I'm a one child household now" or something to that effect. I found that strange and unbelievable. Even if your life and parents are boring, I would think that finding them missing would be at least slightly alarming. Overall it just didn't flow well for me and I didn't find it believable. The movie however was great!
Book Review: Good, but has some weaknesses...
Summary: 3 Stars
First, I should clearly state that I am a huge Neil Gaiman fan; however, I did see the movie version of Coraline first. Surprisingly enough, I found myself agreeing with another reviewer here: I actually liked the movie version a little better, simply because it really does feel more complete.
Although I would not say this is automatically a detriment, Coraline is told in fairy-tale format, meaning that information not strictly necessary to the plot is not present. Why did Coraline's famliy move? Why did the "other mother" come to exist? More importantly, what does she want? These are all questions the movie attempted to answer, but are not raised in the book.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great book for younger kids. It's creepy, and appeals to their "fantastical" side. However, for older readers looking for more explanation than the book gives, I'd recommend they try the film version.