Customer Reviews

Coraline 1ST Edition

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Coraline is the story of a girl named Coraline who lives with her work-at-home parents. The family has just moved into an apartment in an old house. During the day, when her parents are working Coraline goes exploring in the neighborhood. One rainy day she explores the apartment and finds a door which sometimes opens onto a brick wall but sometimes leads to an apartment similar to her own but more colorful. Here her "Other Mother" is an excellent cook, her clothes are more stylish and fun and everyone pronounces Coraline's unusual name correctly. Before she realizes it Coraline is trapped in the other apartment with her Other Mother and the situation is not all butterflys and rainbows as it first appeared to be. Coraline must use her ingenuity to set things right and return to her own apartment.

This was a pretty good read for me. I'm young but living on my own, so I'm much older than the target audience. The language was simplified a bit much for me. Everything Coraline does is broken down and simplified. Obviously it was written that way to be accessible for children, but I think it will bother other adults too. The story was good with nice visual flourishes and a cohesive plot.

The major strength that I found in the book is the contrast between kindness and love vs possessiveness. The Other Mother is out to please Coraline, but for her Coraline is more of a doll. She insists that Coraline stay with her, and when Coraline chooses not to it turns out that Coraline didn't have a choice as far as the Other Mother was concerned. The Other Mother plays with Coraline and pays attention to her as she would to a pet and it becomes obvious that she will discard Coraline once she looses interest. In the other apartment the situation gets more obviously sinister the longer Coraline has been there. The Other Mother and her possesiveness contrast with Coraline's parents who are preoccupied with other things and don't pay much attention to Coraline. The lack of attention gives Coraline a chance to be independent and go exploring (although her parents are aware of where she is they aren't watching her all the time). As Coraline realizes during the course of the story, the lack of attention doesn't imply a lack of love. As she considers ways to outsmart the Other Mother, Coraline remembers how when she was younger she and her father walked into a wasps' nest. Her father told her to run ahead and stayed behind for a little while so the wasps would sting him not her.

Another streangth is Coraline using her smarts to fight magic. In the other apartment things are very different. Animals talk and buildings and people can change shape at the Other Mother's whim. Coraline trys to find rules in this world to outsmart the Other Mother. I found Coraline to be a satisfying heroin. She has a balanced personality and isn't all smiles all the time.

I would recommend this book. If the promotional material sounds interesting to you, then you will probably like the execution.