Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Summary:
Coraline's often wondered what's behind the locked door in the drawing room. It reveals only a brick wall when she finally opens it, but when she tries again later, a passageway mysteriously appears. Coraline is surprised to find a flat decorated exactly like her own, but strangely different. And when she finds her "other" parents in this alternate world, they are much more interesting despite their creepy black button eyes. When they make it clear, however, that they want to make her theirs forever, Coraline begins a nightmarish game to rescue her real parents and three children imprisoned in a mirror. With only a bored-through stone and an aloof cat to help, Coraline confronts this harrowing task of escaping these monstrous creatures.

Gaiman has delivered a wonderfully chilling novel, subtle yet intense on many levels. The line between pleasant and horrible is often blurred until what's what becomes suddenly clear, and like Coraline, we resist leaving this strange world until we're hooked. Unnerving drawings also cast a dark shadow over the book's eerie atmosphere, which is only heightened by simple, hair-raising text. Coraline is otherworldly storytelling at its best.
Summary taken from Goodreads.com

I had such high hopes for this book but when I started reading it those hopes were quickly dashed and now I regret spending the 2 hours reading this book when I could have been reading something that was actually enjoyable!
And before you ask no I haven't seen the movie so I am most assuredly not comparing it to the movie adaptation in anyway. Though I do still plan on seeing the movie even with not liking the book at all.
I honestly didn't like the book at all and felt that the whole thing was very underwhelming but once again I appear to be in the minority for having this opinion. I don't think that the reason I didn't like this book is because is a children's book because I enjoy reading children's book still.
I'm thinking that it was just a simple case of this not being a book for me but at least I finished it even though I didn't like it and I can say that I have read it and given it a chance. I just couldn't connect to Coraline or the way Neil Gaiman wrote the story. I mean the premise was promising but around 40 pages in I kept waiting to be surprised by something and I wasn't. I honestly can't say that I found anything that wasn't completely predictable so all in all this is not a book that I would recommend except maybe to fans of the movie or fans of Gaiman's other novels.

★