[Review] Coraline, by: Neil Gaiman

CORALINE

by: Neil Gaiman
Publication Date: August 4th, 2002
Read Date: March 2nd, 2018
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Children's Lit
Format: Paperback (from Library)
Pages: 163

 

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.

my rate

I have to say that when I found this book in the library that I work, I squee of glee because I didn't know we had a copy when indeed we have two. The movie creeped me out so bad, but I said I was going to be brave enough to push through this book. Lo and behold, I made it and I wasn't as creeped out as in the movie.

Coraline is a girl that cannot stay put doing just one thing. She has to explore, she has to keep moving around. But her exploring made her reach a place just like her home with wonderful parents that looked like the ones she had, but she had to give up things that she actually treasures. Everything was a trap and she knew it, but she had to be brave and confront the evil other mother.

Look, the story IS creepy because is told by a girl that doesn't know better, so that's why we don't understand what is fully happening. Every "other" person creeped me out enough to put the book down, but I wanted to push through. So be aware of that if you reading this with kids or something. The pictures are as creepy as the movie, so there's that. I don't recommend the movie to anyone, even though is good, but I hate horror.

In the end, everything became better than expected. But I truly believe that the evil was not defeated, just put away. For heaven's sake, is in the bottom of a well! I will never see wells good anymore. First, The Ring makes me think that a murdered girl will come out and now, Coraline, is an evil thing that is in the bottom. BYE. No más.