Audiobook review | The Graveyard Book

One of the Greats | The Graveyard Book | Neil Gaiman

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	• The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman HarperCollins, 2010 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 391 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

very imaginitive and unique

i liked this story because it read...like a story. almost a "once upon at time" sort of thing. it's a very unique idea, and i haven't read anything like it before. characters were likeable. it s was good from start to finish.

Audiobook review

I am a reader, first and foremost.... and I also love books as objects, paper books, not plastic readers. Occasionally however, for long mobile journeys, I'll take on an audio book, something of poetry or memoir, and always because the reader is either a known quantity, i.e. fabulous voice/actor, or author in the case of a memoir. I choose an audio book using the same criteria I have for choosing to read a book, expecting that it will be wonderful, because, I have prejudged, the product is superior.

As it happens, my experience of The Graveyard Book was audial and it did, indeed, rather just happen. I hadn't known much of Neil Gaiman and had never heard his voice. Curiosity had gotten the best of me from an article about him in The New Yorker sometime back, but not enough to send me to Coraline. I have older children and am, therefore, a bit out of touch with the current children's literary scene such as it is. To let you know my taste in juvenile tomes, however, so as to give this review a point of reference, I'm a passionate fan of Beatrix Potter's little illustrated books, absolutely loved Stellaluna, and if you've ever had the good fortune to come to know the short series of Edward the Donkey by French author Philippe Dumas, you pretty much can depend upon my sensibility. I don't care for treacle; I'm a sucker for characters that face an environment of hard experience and take their knocks forthrightly without cynicism or despair, triumphing as they do for having muddled through resourcefully. I don't, as a rule, like horror, science fiction or fantasy. Could not even get through a chapter of Harry Potter. Then, I was lent The Graveyard Book on CD, and to oblige, lent an ear.

I was captivated immediately by Gaiman's lovely English accent and thoroughly engaged by his decidedly intimate reading, theatrical yet calm, expressive though spare, wholly sensitive and nuanced; humorous, suspenseful, serious and silly in perfect measure. He gave the individual characters distinctive voice precisely as I would imagine I should hear them were I to be reading the words off the page; or probably better, one cannot know, having heard first. Yet I'm almost glad not to have read it to myself and I shock myself to admit as much! It is that good. I do heartily suggest that children must love this; it's terrific storytelling. The content contains reference to murders however, and a parent ought to know how they feel about that sort of thing before they share this with their child. The murders that open the narrative are critical to the story. They are not graphically detailed, but it is a hallmark of Naiman's talent that he can contain the brutality, shock and horror of that element in the narrative, without overtly defining sequence and description. The listener (or reader) isn't captivated by a homicide "how-to"; the fact of the matter is after the fact.

Naiman captures, endearingly, the innocence and implacability of children, on the page and with his reading. I don't doubt that child listeners hear the truth of his young protagonist's responses and reactions to the adults in the narrative and to the greater graveyard community the boy genuinely encounters as his home turf. The boy isn't precious, he is inherently comical for being genuine and, dare I say it, "unadulterated."

I highly recommend The Graveyard Book on CD; it is heartwarming and heartrending and wholeheartedly a great "read."
The Graveyard Book

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One of the Greats

I am the first and foremost to hand out bad reviews for the slightest of reasons, but this book is just plain Good. It Tells the story of a baby boy that escapes from the house after his family has been brutally murdered and makes his way to a graveyard, meeting with two ghosts, Mr and Mrs Owens.Mrs Owens holds an undocumented conversation with the Ghosts of the boy's family and it is implied that she agrees to raise him provided everyone in the graveyard can come to a unanimous decision. The voting drags on for quite awhile until a word is spoken by "The White Lady" whom escorts the dead to their place of rest on a white horse. Her opinion is simply "The Dead should have Charity." all agree. This being decided, the residents of the graveyard resort to finding a suitable name for the baby. Each declares who the child resembles until Mrs Owens interupts and declares that he looks like nobody. Thus "Nobody" or "Bod" is given the freedom of the graveyard and granted the ability to see the dead.
The rest of the book chronicles events of "Bod's life as he grows up in the graveyard with vague allusions to(and the eventual defeat of) those that murdered his family .The book bears a number of potentially interesting (though ultimately flat) Characters. What makes the latter function as a good quality is that most every event included with the characters involved ties together at the end of the story and serves some important purpose. An example of this can be seen with Silas'(Bod's Caretaker in adiottion to the Owens) frequent leaving of the graveyard. It turns out that when he did so it was to slay more of"The Jacks" a worldwide organization of murderers responsible for the death of Bod's family. Overall if you don't mind a few loose ends this is definitely worth the read.

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Entertaining and Easy To Read

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was easy to read. It had a good plot that kept me interested in continuing to read it. I enjoyed some of Gaiman's other books more, but this was fun to read.

A Great Book

There is not much to add to other reviews except that I am another person who thought the book was fantastic. A strange tale of growing up and fatherhood. Highly recommended.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack?who has already killed Bod's family. . . .

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, the graveyard book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

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