Coraline by Neil Gaiman

"When you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave."

Synopsis: 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.

Like many people, I picked up Coraline because I wanted to know if it was as delightfully odd and creepy as the movie. Which, granted, is probably not the best way to walk into reading a book, especially coming from a movie as stunning as this one is. Even so, I would be lying if I said that I wasn't entertained.

For starters, Coraline is probably the bravest child character that I have ever read about. The other mother asked to sew buttons over her eyes and keep her forever while ghost children warned her that she essentially wanted to steal her soul, and this ten-year-old marched right back over without hesitating when she realized that her parents were missing. Ten-year-old Ashlyn would have had a mental breakdown and cried in a corner. For this reason, Coraline is an incredibly compelling character! With such unflinching courage, it's impossible not to be moved by it. Which brings me to what I have been dying to write about: the other mother.

I have read many books that feature a monster of some kind as the villain, but the other mother is brilliantly crafted in a way that sets her apart. When she's first introduced, while seeming a little off, you can't help but notice how much kinder she is than Coraline's actual mother. It's this detail that makes the storyline so complicated. Despite eventually showing her true colors and admittedly horrifying intentions, it's impossible to get the bleak image of Coraline's sad, empty world out of your head. Even as the beldam resembles a human less and less, her illusion, to a degree, remains persuasive. After all, she created an entire parallel world that had all of the things that Coraline wished she had in her real one. Other than Pennywise the clown from It, the other mother might actually be the most threatening inhuman villain that I have come across. If my fantasies were fulfilled in a seemingly perfect, alternate universe, I can't guarantee that my ten-year-old self would react as well as Coraline does. The psychology behind it is truly fascinating, and I can't help but wonder how much of Gaiman's target audience was traumatized by this character.

The overall concept behind Coraline is so interesting. Coraline's true parents are negligent and act like they can't give her the time of day. As a child who is desperate to be loved and paid attention to, it is hardly a surprise when she originally embraced the idea of the "other" world. Of course, the other mother isn't nearly as loving as she initially seems. Gaiman creates a disturbing version of the classic message "Don't take what you have for granted". Coraline's real parents mistreat her horribly, but the other mother is so dangerous that she finds herself craving for her former, lonely life. It's a truly tragic storyline. In the end, it's hinted that her parents are more loving, but even those displays of affection are far from enough to fulfill a child's need to be loved and cared for. This detail probably goes over the heads of young readers, but as an adult, it is truly disturbing.

My primary issue with Coraline, unfortunately, is that I watched the movie first. As I'm sure most of you already know, Coraline is a novella that was adapted into an hour and forty-minute-long movie, meaning that the filmmakers had to expand greatly on the given material. As strange as it was, I was captivated by the vibrant, well-fleshed-out world and characters. The attention to detail was stunning, but I quickly realized that many of these details did not come from the novella. I was especially disappointed by some of the missing details regarding the other mother, as the film took her inhuman appearance and behaviors to another level (which, as someone who is deathly afraid of spiders, was incredibly unnerving). Since the timeline was stretched out, the stakes almost felt higher, and the disabling psychology of it all the more prevalent. There was an overwhelming sense of dread as the plot built, and while this is present in the novella as well, it felt flat in comparison.

Now, I want to emphasize one thing: the novella is not bad! In fact, it is excellently executed. The pacing is well done, and the writing leaves you with chills going up your spine. However, due to the order in which I experienced this story, I couldn't help but feel let down. I was hoping to get the movie in writing, which unfortunately tainted my feelings for the novella. Even still, I highly recommend reading this story. It's wonderfully creepy, and I don't doubt that most readers would enjoy it.

If I had read this before I watched the movie, I would have been obsessed with it without a doubt!

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars