Today's post is a review of a book that I read last year. I had heard so many good things about this book and the author that I'm surprised that I didn't pick up the book earlier. This book is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman who is an award winning author.
So let's just jump straight in the review.
Title: The Graveyard BookAuthor: Neil Gaiman & Chris Riddell (Illustrator)
First Publication Year: 2008
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Goodreads Link:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6687860-the-graveyard-book
Plot Summary: When someone known as "the man Jack" murders a family one evening, he realises that there still one member of the family he has yet to attend to. The little one year old had coincidently wondered out of their cot and out of the house, just in time to escape the criminal. Ending up in a nearby graveyard, he is found by ghosts that live there and they decide to raise him to protect him from 'The man Jack." As the little boy grows up, he begins to discover more about the world outside the graveyard but the real question is who is "The man Jack" and why did he kill this boy's family?
Full Review: This was actually my first official Gaiman novel reading experience and I must say it wasn't too bad. I first heard about this book on booktube a couple of years ago and thought that it sounded really interesting. At the time, I had just started working in a book store and would always see this book on the shelf but never knew anything about it until I saw people reviewing it online. I actually didn't really intend for this to be the first novel of Gaiman’s that I read as I was more interested in reading Coraline but after the graphic novel adaptations of the book got released, I was more motivated to finally pick it up. I was told by a friend online that I should read the actual book first before reading the graphic novels as I had originally planned to just read those and so I decided to scrap that plan and read the book first. I also read the book alongside the audiobook and I must say that I'm glad I did as I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't.
The story of The Graveyard Book follows a boy named Nobody “Bod” Owens whose family was killed when he was only a one-year-old. He then goes on to live in the local graveyard and is raised by their ghosts who found him on that fateful evening. There were a lot of things that I liked about this book but there was also a couple of things that bothered me too. One of the things I really loved about the book was the way the story was laid out throughout the chapters. It was a very interesting set up as each chapter of the story presented different parts of the boy’s life. It was great to watch Bod grow and learn about the world through each chapter that showed Bod at a different age. Another thing I really liked were the little stories within these chapters. I felt this book was more like a collection of short stories about Bod rather than a complete novel as each chapter did not really connect to the next but they did all tell us different experiences the boy had over the years. I really enjoyed these short tales of Bod’s life because at the end of each story/chapter, I didn't really feel like it needed to be expanded or be continued. They were just great little insights into a strange boy’s life. It was also really great to see that Gaiman kept the story to involve the underlining plot that someone had killed Bod’s family and that kept me wondering “why?” throughout the book.
Another thing about the story that I really enjoyed was that the book wasn't only told from the main character's point of view but by also the people that were around him. I normally don’t enjoy having to read from multiple perspectives but in this book, I didn't mind it at all. I think this might have been the case as I felt that the different insights gave the book more background and depth which was really great. One more thing that really stuck with me at the end of book were the wonderful black and white illustrations by Chris Riddell. They perfectly depicted the story and were extremely detailed despite the fact they had no colour. I really loved his art work and will definitely be looking out for more books that he illustrates. I’m a little bummed out that he wasn't the chosen illustrator for the graphic novel adaptation as I’m sure it would have been amazing.
Despite all these really good things that I found about the book, there were also a couple of problems I ended up having. One of the main things was the dialogue used throughout the book. There was a lot of the language used between the different characters that confused me. I usually had this issue when it was a character with a particular accent or when Bod was learning words as the words were spelt weirdly in the books to portray the way the characters were saying it such as “nuffink” instead of “nothing”. There were also some strange words that I had no idea how to say that seemed to be created for the world. I am glad that I had the audiobook to listen to and so I could hear what they were actually saying. I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy or understand the book very much if I hadn't been listening to the audiobook. That was probably my main issue as the only other problem I had with the book was the ending which I found to be quite unsatisfying. Though things did end pretty nicely, I would of have preferred a different kind of ending, despite the fact I didn't really have any idea on how it was going to end in the first place.
Overall it was a pretty decent book and I did really enjoy the story and the writing style. I really was quite disappointed with the ending as there may have been a better way to bring everything together but other than that I still really liked it. Neil Gaiman definitely has a unique way of telling a story and I will surely be checking out more of his other work in the future.
~Louise
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