Coraline - BookWyrm - Personal Sized

No cover — Neil Gaiman: Coraline (2021, William Morrow Paperbacks)

paperback, 176 pages

Published Sept. 21, 2021 by William Morrow Paperbacks.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-308823-8

(2 reviews)

When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous.

But there's another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.

53 editions

Henry reviewed Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Quick, Fun Read

4 stars

Coraline is a children's book good enough to be organically read by adults. As it's fairly similar to the movie, I'll cover some not-so-obvious interpretations I had:

Throughout the read I couldn't help but feel like Coraline's other mother was a perfect embodiment of a BPD parent. Aside from the obvious BPD characteristics exhibited by the other mother, I felt the following quote summed everything up beautifully: "It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon love its gold. Int the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing."

After reading the book, I found a great blog analysis that touched on the many thoughts I had throughout the read: pensievely.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/seduced-by-borderline-an-analysis-of-coraline/

BPD-aside, very fun book. Made me laugh a few times, a bit creepy, and …

Coraline is a children's book good enough to be organically read by adults. As it's fairly similar to the movie, I'll cover some not-so-obvious interpretations I had:

Throughout the read I couldn't help but feel like Coraline's other mother was a perfect embodiment of a BPD parent. Aside from the obvious BPD characteristics exhibited by the other mother, I felt the following quote summed everything up beautifully: "It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon love its gold. Int the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing."

After reading the book, I found a great blog analysis that touched on the many thoughts I had throughout the read: pensievely.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/seduced-by-borderline-an-analysis-of-coraline/

BPD-aside, very fun book. Made me laugh a few times, a bit creepy, and was nice to finally read the book. I adore the movie.

Fynh liest reviewed Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Creepy and beautiful at the same time

5 stars

Coraline slips into some kind of parallel version of the new house she has moved into with her parents, where there are copies of everything and everyone that she knows of in the real world, even of her mother and father, who are called 'her other mother' and 'her other father'. But there is one big difference: each copy is some sort of distorted mirage with black button eyes of the real version, and everything there is much more exciting, but also much more scary. And one of these things has kidnapped her parents.

She has to go through several creepy encounters with those monsters to save her parents. While doing this she is far from being fearless, she is actually terribly scared. But Coraline summons her bravery out of love for her parents and out of her desire to save them and that is what makes this book so …

Coraline slips into some kind of parallel version of the new house she has moved into with her parents, where there are copies of everything and everyone that she knows of in the real world, even of her mother and father, who are called 'her other mother' and 'her other father'. But there is one big difference: each copy is some sort of distorted mirage with black button eyes of the real version, and everything there is much more exciting, but also much more scary. And one of these things has kidnapped her parents.

She has to go through several creepy encounters with those monsters to save her parents. While doing this she is far from being fearless, she is actually terribly scared. But Coraline summons her bravery out of love for her parents and out of her desire to save them and that is what makes this book so creepy and beautiful at the same time.

And it also gives us the important message, that being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared. It means you are scared and do the right thing anyway. Something that author Neil Gaiman wanted to tell his daughters, for whom he has written the book.