Coraline - Gaiman

Coraline

Neil Gaiman

Almost a year ago I skipped a few classes to see Neil Gaiman speak at the One Book, One Chicago for his featured book, Nevermore. As far as authors go he is one of the nicest and most accessible out there. Plus I love his twitter and blog. Since I already owned Neverwhere , Stardust and had already read The Graveyard Book the next best option was for me to buy a signed copy of Coraline and expand my little Gaiman library. It was a good choice.

In a new, dull house chosen by her boring parents Coraline finds a locked door with nothing but a brick wall behind it. But what happens one day when she opens the door not to find a wall but an alternate universe, complete with alternate parents and a cat that can talk? And why do her "other" parents and neighbors have buttons for eyes? You'll have to read to see.

One of the things I absolutely love about Neil Gaiman's young adult/children's books is how accessible they are to all readers. Coraline is no exception. Above all it is a fairy tale worth of the Grimms. My only complaint about this 162 page child friendly adventure in fantasy and horror is Coraline herself. She's a clever girl, yes, and I respect her and the role girls like her have played in fairy tales, but she is whiny and really hard to relate to or like.

Overall Coraline is a great, fast read. It was everything I wanted from a modern fairy tale. The villains were the stuff of my childhood nightmares, the animals shout outs to some fantastic animated movies and the overall experience pretty great.

A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones

George R R Martin

For your sanity and mine I'm going to yank the synopsis from goodreads. It's better for both of us. I promise.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective wall. To the south, the King's powers are failing, and his enemies are emerging from the shadows of the throne. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the King's new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but also the kingdom itself. A heroic fantasy of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and evildoers who come together in a time of grim omens. The first volume in George Martin's series

There's a lot of hype around Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series right now, what with the HBO show and the release of Dances with Dragon's you've probably been hard pressed to avoid these books. Since you can find a galoption (I am making up numbers! yay creativity!) of reviews all over the interweb and I haven't even started a Clash of Kings yet I am just going to point out a few of my favorite things from A Game of Thrones.

The Stark's - They're your typical principled hero's and that is a very rare characteristic to have in this book. Eddard and his children all have distinct personalities, and most of them are POV characters. My favorite is a toss up between the bastard Jon Snow and Arya. Plus their motto's is "Winter is Coming" and for some reason I think that is really awesome.

Westero - Fantasy worlds are important. Well, they're important in fantasy novels. I don't think they're very important in non fiction or poetry.  Westero is perfectly dissected into parts that are recognizable and things that are fanciful. Plus there are large wolves and dragons. That's kind of awesome.

The Narration - A Game of Thrones is told from the perspective of eight different characters (plus one prologue). It's fascinating to get inside so many heads and hear so many different sides to the same situation. It's also a huge plus to have so much variety in a 800+ page book.

There's More to Look Forward To - While the series is still in progress, there are five of the seven books published and waiting patiently on my kindle. As soon as I finish The Night Circus I'm going to start A Clash of Kings.

Stardust - Gaiman

Stardust

Neil Gaiman

Thristran Thorn doesn't belong in his small hometown of Wall, and when a promise to retrieve a fallen Star in the promise of love from Victoria leads him through the hole in the wall (in Wall, kinda how it got its name) into the land of Faerie he finds adventures bigger and more perilous then he could ever imagine. When he finally reaches his fallen star he is surprised to find it is actually a woman, and with that he changes the course of his life forever!

I'm a big fan of what I like to call Adult Fairytales, and Stardust easily fits into this category. Gaiman has a knack for creating really interesting 'other' worlds. After reading The Graveyard Book last year I'd been really interested in trying something else by Neil. I was really impressed with Stardust. I saw the film when it came out several years ago and remembered liking it, but very little about the story.

Overall I really enjoyed Stardust. The story was solid, with enough suspense to propel the plot forward, and really interesting scenario's. I mean people turned into animals? Magical glass flowers? Ships in the sky? It was nice to see a fresh fairytale. My only real problem was with minor characters. I remember watching the film years ago that the old witches were really fantastic, and the caption of the sky ship hilarious, and really, most of the people Thristran encountered were full characters. In the novel they fall flat. Thristran is a fully developed character, as is his star counterpart, but other then that people, or animals come and go, and they have no existence outside of the story. It would have been nice, especially with three intersecting stories to see more of the potential Stormhold Earls or of the Witches. Even with this complaint I would wholeheartedly recommend Stardust. It was a quick read, and really drew me in.

So, I guess that's my short review of Stardust. I've got my second to last day of classes for the semester today! I'm super excited to get back to really reading, because I've been slacking these past few months