Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - Coraline

Coraline the movie is my favorite movie ever, but this is my first time reading the book, so i had really high and specific expectations. first of all, no Wybie???!??!!?! i really appreciate his addition in the movie.
in the very first chapter it says "She hoped it wasn't a spider. Spiders made Coraline intensely uncomfortable." knowing the scene in the movie where

the Beldam strips away the floorboards into a spiderweb to trap Coraline and prevent her escape from the Other World

, i highlighted this and noted it as some sly foreshadowing for the climax. there were then thirteen subsequent uses of the word "spider", so i was really expecting

the Beldam to exhibit some explicitly spider-like qualities

, but this never happens, which i think is a shame. it would have been even more effective in the book than it was in the movie.
on the other hand, the final chapter of the book (XIII—i see you Neil Gaiman) is even more brilliant and satisfying than the movie, with the

fake doll tea party to trick the Beldam hand into jumping into the well

. genius
the overall theme of the story was very well done, Coraline's need for attention from her busy parents really comes through especially in how she talks about them when they're not around, and then just small moments of affection between her and her parents when they return are so touching, i cried (

daddy issues

)
also, i have to say, Neil Gaiman did not do his own characters justice in his audiobook reading. give it some life! make Coraline sound stubborn and actually like a child! make the Beldam snarly and mad-villainous! everyone is so dry, which works perfectly for the cat since it's in the cat's character, but the rest just becomes dull. except for the rats' songs. those were horrifying and unsettling and i love them.

Content Warnings