“As the first stars came out Coraline finally allowed herself to drift into sleep, while the gentle upstairs music of the mouse circus spilled out onto the warm evening air, telling the world that summer was almost done.”

The last line of Coraline, as I finished it on the flight back from Bohol, seemed to me to be a fitting end to a great summer. I was able to watch backlogged TV shows, watched some movies, read a book or two, played airsoft, went to some beaches, even dived. I wasn’t able to cook, climb, nor go karting but I guess I can always put them off for the next summer. But I’m digressing, back to the book.

As everyone probably already know, Coraline is a children’s book with a twist. A dark twist as you would expect from Gaiman. It’s the typical premise of a children’s book: bored kid(s) having imaginary adventures that become all to real. But Gaiman was able to make it dark and creepy (a crawling severed white hand with loooong nails, now if that doesn’t raise goosebumps). It plays on every child’s (and who wasn’t?) fears (spiders, rats, etc) and multiplies them tenfold (the vividness of your imagination plays a factor). But most importantly, he was able to make it quite entertaining.

Rating: 4/5

Coming from the maker of the Sandman series I was a bit apprehensive about Stardust. But it came highly recommended so I made an effort to turn the cover and then the first page. Then time passed and surprisingly I was at the last page. I guess what I liked about the book is that it evokes, even if only a bit, a sense of wonder and awe that, for example, the Harry Potter series wasn’t able do. Or perhaps it was the fact that I watched instead of read them :P In a way, it’s almost a children’s book if it were not dark and twisted at times. But then the Fairy Tales by the brothers Grimm were also like that, so who am I to say it’s a children’s book? It’s also pretty clever, without appearing contrived. I can’t wait to read Neverwhere and Coraline.

Rating: 4/5