Coraline

by Neil Gaiman

Read November 2008

This was the second time I read Coraline. I wanted to re-read it before I saw the movie. The first time I read it, I found it to be one of the creepiest books I'd read. I remember sitting on my bed at La Rochelle Rd, reading. I couldn't put the book down but it was getting late and I felt so spooked. The second time I read it, there wasn't the creepy, spooky feeling, but it was just as good the second time around.

Coraline is bored and looking for adventure. Her workaholic parents are a little strange - eggheads and absent minded. Coraline meets her strange neighbors - the two former actresses who live with their dogs in the basement apartment and the man with the mouse circus. He lives upstairs. In Coraline's apartment, there is a door to nowhere. But one day Coraline opens the door and instead of a brick wall, there's an entrance into a bizzaro world that looks like her own. But her mother (the "Other Mother") has buttons for eyes. She gives Coraline what she's been longing for - some attention. But Coraline finds out that there's no place like home when the Other Mother gets stranger and creepier.

The movie was very good but, of course, it couldn't match the book. There were little touches in the book that just didn't translate. It's been a few months since I've seen the movie, but I remember thinking that the Other Mother grew sinister looking too quickly. I think the Other Father was a little different as well.

But I loved Coraline the book!