My Favorite Books!

Coraline

Genre : Children literature/dark fantasy/horror

Pages : 210

Published : July 2, 2002

Goodreads rating : 4.1

My personal rating : 5/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My favorite quote from the book : "Because," she said, "when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave."

Description :

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.

NON-SPOILER SECTION

I decided to read this book last year because the movie is one of my favorite movies and Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors. So I knew there was no way I wasn't gonna love this book.

If you've never heard of this story somehow, it's about a girl who moves to a new house with her parents and then discovers a passageway that leads to another house that looks just like her own. It's basically like a parallel universe where everything is more fun. Her real parents don't give her much attention but in this new world her "other mother" and "other father" (who have creepy black button eyes!) are very attentive and they want her to stay with them forever, which is tempting for Coraline since her real parents are too busy for her. But things quickly get very creepy and Coraline soon finds herself fighting to get back to her life and her parents, as well as to rescue the lost souls of other children who've been trapped in that world.

Not only is the story great, but the characters are awesome as well. I love Coraline. I love how smart and brave and kind she is. I love how she learns from her mistakes, and actually listens to people's advice! The side characters were great too (including the cat! No, especially the cat!)

Also I love that the author wrote this story for his daughter because she couldn't find any children horror books. How do I know about that, you wonder? 'Cause once I love something, I obsessively do research about it for the first few days hehe I've also watched a lot of dark theories about the story and if I talked about them I would be spoiling the book so... go look it up if you're interested!

If you decide to read this book (as you should) I advice you to read the illustrated version because I've seen some of the drawings in it and they're perfect. Unfortunately I didn't know that version existed while reading this book so.. I missed out 😭 But even without the illustrations, reading this book was an awesome experience and I recommend it to everyone.

SPOILER SECTION

My favorite thing about this book is the way it defines bravery. As you can see at the beginning of this review I said that my favorite quote from the book was "when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave." I just love that so much.

I liked Miss Spink and Miss Forcible as much as I did in the movie. Their quirkiness was so enjoyable. And the cat, of course! I don't remember much about the other father but I'm pretty sure he wasn't a bad person. I remember feeling bad for him lol

As for the villain aka the other mother/the beldam.. the way she was written was excellent! She was so scary. I remember that moment when she swore on her mother's grave and when Coraline asked her if her mother has a grave.. the other mother was like yeah I put her in it myself and when she tried to escape I pushed her in again.. how creepy!

I think the whole concept of the "other mother" was so creepy. The way she pretended to be nice, trying to convince Coraline to stay there forever.. it was so unsettling. We see her true form after Coraline found the lost souls of the children, and it was so creepy to imagine. The whole beldam thing creeps me out! A very memorable scary moment for me is towards the end of the book when I thought it was over only to realize her hand was still in the house... It was so creepy! As someone who watches a lot of horror movies, I couldn't help but imagine her hand crawling out of that well one day!

I love her character growth after the experience she had at the 'other' house. When she got back to her old life she starts appreciating the things that she used to take for granted. "The sky had never seemed so sky; the world had never seemed so world." And a paragraph later it says "Nothing, she thought, had ever been so interesting." And I really love that. Great ending.

The movie adaptation:

Like I said earlier I freaking love this movie and I've watched it countless times over the years. It's from the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas movie which is also one of my favorite movies! Like I said earlier I saw the movie before reading Coraline, and I feel like if the movie didn't exist I wouldn't have heard about the book at all. It's pretty accurate to the book except a few minor changes, and the changes made it even better than the book in my opinion. I don't know what else to say about this movie. It's just flawless lol