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A review by elaichipod
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The book is super fast-paced compared to the movie and the other mother asks Coraline about sewing buttons into her eyes in Coraline's first visit. There is also no doll doppelganger version of Coralin and no Wybie. Everything else is pretty much the same. When the other mother swore on her right hand when Coralin proposed the game to find the 3 children and her parents, I knew that hand would cause problems later. When I had watched the movie, I don't think I realized the other mother used her right hand. Also, I cannot imagine reading this book as a child because Gaiman is just too good at world-building and describing the scary parts.
- “Because,” she said, “when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”
- I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.
- Coraline shivered. She preferred the other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you cannot see.
- It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold.
- And then a voice that sounded like her mother's her own mother, her real, wonderful, maddening, infuriating, glorious mother, just said, “Well done, Coraline,” and that was enough.
- “Because,” she said, “when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”
- I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.
- Coraline shivered. She preferred the other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you cannot see.
- It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold.
- And then a voice that sounded like her mother's her own mother, her real, wonderful, maddening, infuriating, glorious mother, just said, “Well done, Coraline,” and that was enough.