Diy's Books List: [Review] Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Title: Coraline
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: August 2006
ISBN: 9780061139376
Pages: 162

Coraline's often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures.

Gaiman has delivered a wonderfully chilling novel, subtle yet intense on many levels. The line between pleasant and horrible is often blurred until what's what becomes suddenly clear, and like Coraline, we resist leaving this strange world until we're hooked. Unnerving drawings also cast a dark shadow over the book's eerie atmosphere, which is only heightened by simple, hair-raising text. Coraline is otherworldly storytelling at its best.

Coraline declared herself as an explorer. When she arrived at her new home, the first thing she did was exploring it. Her flat, the other tenant's flat, and the garden around the house. Exploring is thing that she does. So when she found only darkness in the strange door in the drawing room, which only showed brick wall the day before, she began to explore it.

"Don’t go through the door."

Strange as it was, it led her to her other home, and her other parents. This other world had it all, parents who paid attention to her and meals that was so delicious compared to her father's.

"You can stay here forever and always"

But Coraline still wanted to come back home, her real home to her real parents. However, when she came back, there was no one at home. After one full day her parents were missing, she finally saw them. They stand inside the mirror in her drawing room. And she knew only one person who could hold them there.

At last, Coraline went again to the other world, she demanded her parents back, but her other mother loved games, so she offered a game.

But "There’s no guarantee she’ll play fair"

Well,

It didn't really explain how the other world was created, I mean, the other mother created them, but it didn't explain how the other mother was created. It's not a sci-fi and purely fantasy, so I guess she was created like this >>

“Before things are tangible, they are ideas. I … am an idea someone had, long ago, bound to flesh. Their belief made me real and once real, I had agency.”

It was something I get from Mortal Danger, but well, maybe the concept is the same one.

Anyway, do I like Coraline? Hell, yes. As a book and as a character. Coraline tells us to be brave, no matter how frightening it was, you have to protect your family. She is smart, she could take out any clue that other people gave her. She loved her family, even though her parents are a bit ignorant toward her, alas it's her family. I like The Cat in here, reminds me of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. And this book kept telling me that Name is just a name, that it's not important, or something.

"We know who we are, so we don’t need names."

And I like the illustrations, creepy as it is, it's good. And yeah, they're creepy.

Last but not least, I like the way Gaiman tells this story, scene to scene, just like they say "we resist leaving this strange world until we're hooked"