A review by inhonoredglory
Coraline by Neil Gaiman

5.0

It was absolutely wonderful to listen to Neil Gaiman narrating this, and seeing how it differed from the Laika film. My favorite part was how much it felt like a child's fantasy––not in how "safe" or innocent it was. (It's Neil Gaiman, this is never true.) But in how much it was vaguely framed, basically, as a child's grand imaginary adventure, made on a boring summer day, filled with the danger, horrors, drama, and inventiveness that only a smart, precocious child could imagine. The decaying visage of the Other Father pursuing Coraline with unwilling malicious intent will remain a scene of wonderfully true horror for me, and I can see why the animated film dropped it. It's something pretty bold for a children's book, and that's because this book wasn't made to be fit into a category. Gaiman wrote it, let his publisher decide where to shelve it, and when his publisher's kid said they weren't afraid of it, it was shelved into the children's section. (But that kid lied; they were indeed afraid and too proud to admit it.) That's something of the story behind this that I remember. It's pretty telling. This story is incredibly inventive, scary in a thoughtful, intentional, and psychological way, which in the end, is the best horror I can imagine.

Dec 12, 2020