Coraline

Coraline by Neil Gaimen was one of the first novels I read when I was young that changed the way I thought about life. There are always those stories out there that influence how you think and change your idea of how a world reacts to different situations. Some examples are stories like the uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, a new idea in a new world and yet we can always relate to it because it’s happening in our own life (plastic surgery, ranking people etc) Some new stories like Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr show old ideas (making your own choices) and old fantasy (folklore) yet put us in a new and modern world that makes you believe everything is true. Even the bible can be put under this category.

Coraline is a story about a girl in a new house in a new world foreign to her. She loves to explore and on a rainy boring day she goes hunting for something to do. This is where she finds a door that will take her on an adventure. Through this door is the appearance of the same world she had behind her; however when looking closely its very different, dark, bleak and very mysterious. Her parents have buttons for eyes and won’t let her go back through the door she came through. But that’s just the start of her troubles.

As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I loooved this story. It was something I hadn’t read before and I still haven’t read a similar or better story that had the same ideas as Coraline. I have watched the trailer to this movie and I think it captures the idea so well which I am very pleased about. From what I can remember from this story its dark behaviour was interesting, yet scary at the same time. I never wanted to put the book down yet felt the need to late at night or I would have had nightmares. I remember being very disappointed with the ending though. Such a wild and different story was summed up quite...normally? Quickly? I don’t know. It seemed to me that Neil wanted so much to finish the story that it seemed to just end so suddenly. His writing style throughout the novel was descriptive, yet when it came to the ending it was almost like there were a few pages missing. Therefore I rate this book 4/5

I read this book when I was in grade six and although I have been known to remember quite a lot of books I read when I was little and have a good memory of how I felt about them, truth be known I only remember the ones that had a great effect on me. And seeing as I’m a massive fan of books it’s easy for authors to entertain someone like me. I will always remember the books that changed my thoughts, my life and my world.

Jinx xx