Coraline

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

What to say about this book ... Geez that's putting me on the spot. I have been trying to think of what to say about it for 2 days and haven't got any idea what to write. First off, this book fills the spot of the Hugo award winner and those are very hard to find as they are novellas or short stories. Many of them are not published in hard copy because it's better to publish an e-copy and charge $3.99 for it than have someone buy the book for $12-15. I get the understanding behind why they are so rare. I really wish that I was able to find the copy of the Ted Chiang book that I wanted but alas there were no hard copies available. (Nb – I have reviewed a Ted Chiang book before and it was quite interesting).

Here it goes for Coraline. This book kind of reminded me of Matilda by Roald Dahl but the premise was a lot darker. Coraline's parents don't really pay attention to her and she doesn't really have any friends so she's always looking for acceptance. That being said, when she goes past the door to another version of the world she lives in, she meets her 'other parents' and becomes fond of them. They make better food, they want to spend time with her, they want to do things as a family BUT WAIT there's a hitch. I'm not going to tell you what that is but I will say that's where the darkness permeates and begins to become a bit of a problem for Coraline. The classic story line where the main character gets what she wants and things go happily ever after happens in this book BUT she has to work for what she wants and there are some twists and turns. I found this book extremely hard to read and it's not even 200 pages, which is very sad in my opinion. The most I would give it for a rating would be 1 star. Children may like this book much better than I did, and of course there is a movie based on the book so that would be a perk as well. Will I be watching the movie, NOPE, not going to waste my time. And that's all I have to say about that.