Neil Gaiman - Coraline

To start off - I finished Eleven on Top yesterday, and it left me craving more. That's the trouble with chicklit; you end up needing more sexual innuendo. I get totally absorbed in the Ranger/Morelli dilemma poor Stephanie Plum has going on. And I sincerely hope that if the series ever gets filmed they cast somebody relatively normal-looking as Stephanie - because part of the joys of the books is that she seems quite average and nevertheless has these two gorgeous fellas drooling and fawning over her. To join the shallow madness, visit http://www.evanovich.com/ . The storyline is sort of the same in all the Plum books - in this one Stephanie quits her job as a bond agent, which leads to some new situations, but we don't see any new characters to speak of. Apparently Evanovich is contracted for another good few books, so we'll see if she can invent some new criminals in the Burg, or if she's going to have to turn all the seemingly stable citizens into criminal masterminds.

I also wanted to write about Neil Gaiman's children's novel Coraline. I borrowed it from a friend who is a huge fan, and was very pleasantly surprised. I myself have never been so enamoured by Gaiman's writing - sure, I've read Good Omens and enjoyed it (mental note: re-read book in order to blog about it), but that was a collaboration after all and I probably saw more Terry Pratchett in that. As for the comics... I don't get comics really. Unless they're funny. Comics should be funny to me, or else I feel cheated. My husband is a Sandman fan - as for me, I go berserk with all the bolding done in comics, forcing me to stress words in a very exaggerated manner.

But anway, I enjoyed Coraline. It was spooky though. Talk about your dark fantasies! Where does he get it all from? I'm very impressed.

Coraline has just moved with her parents to a new house. Her parents work all the time and don't pay her enough attention, so when Coraline discovers the mirror world where the Other Mother reigns she is, at first, very happy. But when the Other Mother wants her to have button eyes like her own (ew ew ew) Coraline runs away. The Other Mother then wants revenge, and Coraline has to save the day. It's nice to have a female heroine in a children's book - of course, in this particular genre it's not so uncommon, but as a mother of daughters I still appreciate it. The lesson to be learned is that you love your parents and your family, and will do whatever you can to save them. It's traditional, but not rammed down our throats. It certainly isn't the main point of the story. The spookiness is, and the distorted mirror world that holds people captive to the Other Mother's will. An absolute must-read, in my opinion.