Review: Coraline

Title: Coraline

Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Children / Fantasy / Horror
Publication: 2002

Summary: Coraline's often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures.

My Thoughts: Coraline is among my favorite books ever read. For one thing, it's the first book written by Neil Gaiman that I've read and is the one that started me into reading a lot more. Secondly, this story my kind of story.

If I could sum up the entire book with one word I'd use - creepy. This is the second time that I've read Coraline all the way through from the beginning to the end and it is still as amazing and as frightening as the first time I've experienced it. Perhaps even more frightening this time around now that I have a daughter of my own and couldn't imagine her going through what Coraline had to. But it was for that reason that it made reading this creepy story so exciting. It's because Coraline was just an ordinary girl, who was a bit small for her age. She's a charming, curious, intelligent and brave little girl who gets herself into a scary predicament and needs to gather up all her courage to defeat the odds set against her.

Not only is Coraline's character really great, the other characters in this story are just as interesting. I especially loved the cat and found a lot of his lines very memorable. The eccentric neighbors are also quite unique. And finally the other mother is just plain creepy. I've known people who seem like they could kill you with their niceness, and have wondered if perhaps they are secretly "an other mother". There is not a character in this novel I didn't like reading about.

The atmosphere was also something else that added to the creepiness. Neil Gaiman sure knows how to paint a picture with words that will linger in your memory long after you've read them. One of the more notable of these things, yet such a simple thing, are the black button eyes. Who knew that black buttons could be so creepy! Coraline is filled with nice little touches of creepiness like this one. I loved it!

In the end, Coraline is really a children's book, but it's so unique and scary that I have no doubt that even an adult would love it. Take myself for example. I believe parents with children would find this book a lot more frightening than even the children themselves. So if you're looking for a nice, short book to read about a girl who is cast into a frightening adventure, then look no further.

My Rating: 5/5

Recommend It For: Everyone.

Review: The Sorcerer's House

Title: The Sorcerer's House

Author: Gene Wolfe

Genre: Fantasy

Publication: 2010

Summary: In a contemporary town in the American Midwest where he has no connections, an educated man recently released from prison is staying in a motel. He writes letters to his brother and to others, including a friend still in jail. When he meets a real estate agent who tells him he is the heir to a huge old house, long empty, he moves in, though he is too broke to even buy furniture, and is immediately confronted by supernatural and fantastic creatures and events.

His life is utterly transformed and we read on, because we must know more. We revise our opinions of him, and of others, with each letter. We learn things about magic, and another world, and about the sorcerer Mr. Black, who originally inhabited the house. And then perhaps we read it again.

My Thoughts: (I normally try to stay away from writing anything that may give away important information concerning the story, but I've never read anything like this before so I find it hard to review. I'll do my best.)


This was not at all what I was expecting. I really liked it! However, in the end I was left a bit confused. Sadly, I am not very good at "reading between the lines" thus the reason for my being confused, because this is the kind of book that you read and realize that there is a lot more being said here than that is being shown. Just the same, I really enjoyed the narrative and the surface story of this book enough that I was deeply intrigued and captivated.

The book is written in a series of letters all written by, or written to, an ex-convict named Baxter Dunn who has inherited an unusual old house by a mysterious man and in turn writes about his experiences, more or less. Bax writes to three people, his brother George, Millie (George's wife), and his friend Shell. Within these letters is where I've learned the most of his personality, and have come to believe that even though he writes to his brother (and Millie) with pleasantries and good intentions, I couldn't shake the feeling that he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. However, I could be wrong. That's what I mean about the story being more than what it appears. A person can read this and later think up multiple theories on what really took place, if there was indeed anything else at all. This story being told by Bax is either deceptive (my impression), or a very extraordinary flat out truth (because it is a fantasy after all). All this is another reason I really enjoyed this book even though I'm not exactly intelligent enough to piece it all together. I will most likely some day reread this and try and discover more.

Now, putting aside all of that, the story being told is definitely interesting. There's talk about sorcerer's, magic, werewolves, facefoxes (the reverse effect of a werewolf - a fox who turns into human), ghosts, and other fantastical creatures that will fascinate or turn off. If you believe what the narrator is saying is true then you'd have to admit that his story is definitely remarkable because it's [expletive deleted] crazy. Although some of the twists were predictable, the general mystery of the story remained strong enough to keep me entertained.

All in all, the story was really well written. It had me from the very beginning and I was captivated by it the whole way through.

My Rating: 4/5

Recommend It For: Adults and fantasy readers.

Review: Sunshine

Title: Sunshine

Author: Robin McKinley
Genre: Fantasy / Vampire
Publication: 2003

Summary: There hadn't been any trouble out at the lake in years. Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts for a minute. But then the vampires found her . . . Now, chained and imprisoned in a once-beautiful decaying mansion, alone but for the vampire, Constantine, shackled next to her, Sunshine realizes that she must call on her own hidden strength if she is to survive. But Constantine is not what she expected of a vampire, and soon Sunshine discovers that it is he who needs her, more than either of them know.

My Thoughts: I wish I could write a well thought out review for this but because my wife and I just had a baby my mind is so tired I don't think I have it in me just yet. But I don't want to put off writing a review because it'll likely never happen. So...

Ugh. Sunshine, seriously, I don't care about your cinnamon rolls, killer zebras, muffins or your family run coffee house THAT much. My biggest issue with this book is that it's spent too much inside the narrator's head. Sure, what goes on in there can certainly be interesting and even insightful into the kind of world the author has created, which I found neat, but I found her to be annoying and she definitely talked to much about Charlie's Coffeehouse. Again, I really don't care THAT much about your coffehouse. It was nice at first but what I really came into this book for were the vampires! Which, when I think about it, were few and far between.

The beginning when she first meets Con was promising, but that all went downhill later in means of storytelling for me. There wasn't enough dialogue, not enough character interaction, not enough vampire action, not enough Con, and it all boils down to too much narrator rambling inner thoughts. The magic in this world was admittedly really captivating and original because even though there were demons, magic, vampires, etc, society kept going on like it normally would to any of us. Cool alternate reality. But unfortunately that didn't save story for me. The only reason I picked up this book was because Neil Gaiman said it was "pretty much perfect". As big of a fan as I am of Neil Gaiman, I'm going to be careful of that kind of thing from now on.

I truly believe this could have been a great story. It was all there! All those delicious ingredients were there to bake a great vampire story. But whyyyyyyyy?! Maybe it's the sleep deprivation talking here because I really wanted to like this book. But it flopped. This is the first book I've read of Robin McKinley and it will most likely be the last.

My Rating: 2/5