Book Review: Graveyard Book

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, by Neil Gaiman

NO SPOILERS

Yes, gentle reader, it’s two months out from the release of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, and I’ve long-since devoured it.

By long-since I really mean maybe a quartet of weeks.

I’m certain that by this point I’m speaking primarily to Neil Gaiman fans (and possibly his agent/publicist/net-popularity-wrangler) (and maybe, just maybe, the man himself) and am not given the task of having to comment on the book with the intent of selling it. The people here at this point are likely sold.

But, there are perhaps those who aren’t. I will speak to all fronts as best as I can.

It’s a book about Nobody. Specifically, Nobody Owens, affectionately called ‘Bod’ (not ‘Bob,’ though some believe otherwise). He has, through cunning and wit and the ability to toddle up hills, managed to escape a grizzly death, to be raised by a graveyard, as the ward of a vampire named Silas.

The story mirrors that of THE JUNGLE BOOK (specifically Mowgli’s story, though I’m sure you guessed), with Silas as his Bagheera, Miss Lupecsu as his Baloo, and Jack as his deliciously devilish Shere Khan.

Though don’t think that it is merely a substitution of names with the same plot. THE JUNGLE BOOK was more of a jumping-off point, with Gaiman’s distinctively spooky imagination as the destination. Only a nutter like myself who meticulously read THE JUNGLE BOOK in preparation for this book would recognize the similarities, and even then, only just. This book is uniquely Gaiman, and uniquely wonderful. I use that word to describe this book very specifically, because that’s how I felt when I was finished: full of wonder.

I’d have to say this is one of my new favorites of his. Quite possibly one of the best things he’s ever written. Look for it, on September 30th.