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I'd heard a lot about Gaiman's brilliance from my GR friends, and desperately wanted to try him out for a long time. Then, quite coincidentally, I managed to chance upon the movie 'Coraline'. It completely bowled me over, convincing me that I MUST read the original text. So, as it neared Halloween, I picked up the book, and gave it a shot!

It turned out to be one of those books who though starts out to be perfectly ordinary, slowly creeps up on you. Coraline is an intelligent, witty and adventurous little girl who moves into a new apartment with her parents. Her neighbours, like the old house she lives in, are not the average people you'd encounter on the street. They intrigue her with their pasts, though of course never pronounce her name right! Trapped inside the house one rainy afternoon -- much like the Narnia kids -- and completely ignored by her workaholic parents, Coraline discovers a door to a parallel reality, where her parents adore her, her neighbours are wonderful extensions of their old selves, who get her name right, and life is, in general, as amazing as it could be. But as the story progresses, she realizes that there is a terrible price that she has to pay for this glorified life, which she had not bargained for.

As you turn the pages and get wrapped into the story, you as a reader, realize that Gaiman has the extraordinary ability to turn our minds against us, and feed paranoia and fear into our hungry psyches. He takes simple objects, say a child's rhyme, or something as cute as buttons, and turns them into something odious and loathsome, conditioning us to fear them.

It does not have cheap gory slasher scenes, true. But most authentic horror books don't.

Another factor which worked for my favour, was the completely kick-ass heroine. It is always a delight to read about smart pre-teens, before their hormones kick in, killing their sparks by making them think about only one thing in the world: BOYS! So, it was quite a refreshing change.

I'll definitely keep reading more of Gaiman's books, and the next one I'm on is called The Graveyard Book, and I see that I'm already liking it.

So, go ahead, and grab a copy, but remember: "Be careful what you wish for, as wishes always come with a price!"

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