Author: Neil Gaiman
Series: -
Genres: Horror, Fiction
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Release: 2006 August 29th
Source: eBook
Pages: 162
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BLURB:
'An electrifyingly creepy tale likely to haunt young readers for many moons.... a real bedtime-buster'. Read an exclusive excerpt at BookBrowse today. Reading age approx. 9 yrs +.
The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring....
In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.
The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.
Only it's different.
At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.
Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.
Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.
Nosferatu's review
EXPECTATIONS: I watched the movie before, and I loved it greatly, so my expectations were pretty decent. The one thing I surely did not expect, it for it to be scary. But it's Neil Gaiman, even his younger young adult stuff seems to be a bit on the Burton side of the moon. Which I don't mind at all.
THE WORLD: Coraline moves with her parents into this old house split into flats some time ago. It's a big house, with a lot of new space inside and outside for Coraline to explore. There's great weird neighbors too, folk that save her on the boring rainy days, when there's no tasks at home, no means to go out, and her parents are too busy to play with her. She can always go listen to her neighbor Bobo tell her about his mice circus, or visit the old actresses, and their pets. But there's more to this house than what the eye meets. On one of her small tasks her parents try to entertain her with, she was set to see what's behind every door. She checked them all except one. The only one locked. Her mother claims there's a wall behind it, separating their flat from their neighbors, but once it was unlocked - strange things begin to happen! For the door merely looked walled off. In truth it led to the Other place. A place where her Other Mother, and her Other father lived and waited for her.
CHARACTERS: Coraline is our protagonist here. A happy, curious child with loving parents, and enough sense in her noggin to know when exactly she ought to do the right thing. Her parents are very busy folk, who sometimes seem to forget about their daughter. Or maybe they just trust her so much, that they're okay with leaving the girl alone for a while, and come back with house still standing. Her neighbors are cool too. Bobo trains mice to play as an orchestra. No one heard it before, but apparently he's determined they'll manage. And the old actresses! Oh, those two are my favorite. They tell future from the residue in your tea mug, which gave me that little Harry Potter magic vibe, and they seem to accidentally always be able to play along with Coraline.
ROMANCE: Well, none.
GOOD: It's a very light, and very amusing read. Well paced and entertaining. I really enjoyed that idea of there being a mirrored Other place, something akin to a house spirit or something. And then there's lots of small details, like a stone with a hole: you look through it, and you see the "truth" of things.
BAD: The ending left me wanting a little more, to be honest. Another chapter or 20 more pages would've felt right. Maybe some family dinner where Coraline tries one of her father's exotic dishes, and likes it.
OVERALL: Well, I liked it a lot, truly. I'm happy I can strike the book out of my to-read list, where it gathered metaphorical dust for a good while now. It goes well even after watching the movie, and of course I liked the book better. Definitely a worthy short little afternoon read.
Martyna's review
EXPECTATIONS: I have to admit, I had already seem the movie multiple times before picking up the actual book. I know the movie by heart and to me the book seemed different, but great at the same time as well.
THE WORLD: The world is set in these two dimensions. Our world, where everything is rushed, people are busy, it's raining and no one find time for anyone, and other world, where everything is like in a dream....or is it? Honestly, I love these stories when there are two worlds! This gave me a little bit of Alice in Wonderland vibe and I love it!
CHARACTERS: Our main character is named Coraline Jones! She is a young girl, who together with her parents moved to a new apartment. She likes to explore, she likes to find things and she is a little bit ignored by her parents. They seem to always be too busy to spend time with her. So Coraline goes to explore on her own. In the book she meets various characters who themselves are rather bizarre. Such as Mr. Bobinsky, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, The Black Cat who are these type of artistic old souls, who maybe have dreams that never came true or one in their youth did something extraordinary.
Now the story gets a twist when Coraline find secret doors, and when she goes through those doors, she find herself in other world, where everything is, looks and seems the same, it even has Other Mother, Other Father, Other Forcible or Other Cat, who in this world - speaks!
I have to say in a story that is around 100 pages majority of the characters felt developed, their personalities revealed and finished. Of course there were some places where I felt I wanted to learn more.
Now the story gets a twist when Coraline find secret doors, and when she goes through those doors, she find herself in other world, where everything is, looks and seems the same, it even has Other Mother, Other Father, Other Forcible or Other Cat, who in this world - speaks!
I have to say in a story that is around 100 pages majority of the characters felt developed, their personalities revealed and finished. Of course there were some places where I felt I wanted to learn more.
ROMANCE: As Quinn said none. Unless for the love of parents, family and so on.
GOOD: The story! I love stories like this! It had everything, horror, gothic theme, spooks, humor, intelligence. It truly is a pleasure to read such a finished book!
BAD: As I said, there were places where I would have liked to know the characters better. And the ending could have been more fulfilling to me personally. It kind of ended in a way where something more could have been added.
OVERALL: Overall, I will be buying this book to my niece and giving it to her, because it's a wonderful children's book, that adult could also learn something from! I love it dearly and I highly recommend it!
What do you think about CORALINE?
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