The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Quite frankly and in all honesty, Neil Gaiman is a genius. With this new book, Gaiman (as usual) exhibits a beautiful mastery of language and a stunning ability to tell a damn good story.

Bod--short for Nobody. Nobody Owens. A boy who grew up in a graveyard. The only living person among many, many dead. He can Fade, Slide, and Dreamwalk, yet he knows precious little about the outside world, and is--on the whole--quite unfamiliar with his own kind. Which needs to change. For there are those among the living who want Bod dead.

Each chapter of this most excellent book takes place about a year or so following the one prior to it and focuses on a different different episode in Bod's life. It's an interesting way of telling a story, and seems as though it would be rather difficult structure to build a complex and consistent character around. Indeed, few authors would be able to pull it off. But it's Neil Gaiman, people. He does that magic author thing really, really well.

I think I heard somewhere that this is a middle-grade book ("somewhere" here meaning on the back of the book), which I didn't contest until I started reading it. It's not like I think it's beyond ten-and-up-ers... but it is a bit gruesome. Like, if it were a movie the little blurb beneath the rating would be something along the lines of "this film is rated PG and a half (?[I mean, I wouldn't call it PG-13 or anything]) for disturbing imagery, dark themes and some menace" (And I swear to you, I have seen "and some menace" on movie ratings before). It didn't frighten me. I could see it freaking younger children out a bit, though. But I'm probably underestimating them. Well, that's pretty likely, seeing as I was one of the only ten-year-olds to refuse to read "scary stories". Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark? terrified me. So I guess my point is, this book might have given me nightmares when I was ten-ish.

In case you're wondering, it's that wonderful kind of middle-grade book that is nothing like a middle-grade book. That is to say that most anyone would enjoy it. It's not too age specific. Like Coraline, which is similarly awesome and also by Neil Gaiman.

Admittedly, the book was a tad bit predictable. But not in a bothersome way. More in an excited "I KNEW IT!" sort of way.

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The odd thing about The Graveyard Book is that it reads more like a collection of interconnected short stories than an actual novel. This isn't a bad thing-- Neil Gaiman manages to tie everything together beautifully at the end in his own, special, Gaimany way, so the book doesn't feel disjointed at all. (Okay, maybe a little bit. But only a little.)
This story isn't as dark as many of Gaiman's others (even though the majority of it happens to take place in a graveyard). The Graveyard Book displays the quirkier side of Gaiman's writing, more Neverwhere than American Gods. This is a good thing, in my opinion. The Graveyard Book finds the perfect balance between darkness and oddity¹, while I think that some of Gaiman's other novels tend to lean a bit too heavily toward the darkness.

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Darkly, oddly yours,


1. Yes, this does mean what I think it means. I'm not using it incorrectly, I promise.