5/5 stars — fun, creepy, and deserving of its classic status

This is the first of Neil Gaiman's books I've read, somehow, and I enjoyed the way his storytelling style worked for a middle-grade novel. Coraline definitely has cross-category appeal, although the ways it scared me as an adult were probably different from the ways it would scare its intended audience.

I think I highlighted two dozen phrases and passages where I thought the dialogue, prose, or character depictions were particularly clever. One of my favorite scary sections was the beldam saying "Nobody sensible believes in ghosts anyway—that's because they're all such liars." It was chilling in its own right, but also served to point out the contradictions of the beldam's attempts to connect with Coraline. It's going to be exciting to check out Gaiman's other books and see how he writes for adults!