{2015 TBR Pile Challenge Review} THE GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman

Lupe's Review:

Neil Gaiman does it again, but this time in a graveyard. He begins his tale in a house with a man coming up the stairs with a bloody knife and so you think this is going to become a horror story. But when you find the baby, whose family has been killed by the man with the knife, going to the graveyard and becoming Nobody Owens, you realize this is going to be so much more than that.

Nobody Owens grows up in the graveyard being "raised" as it were, by Mr. and Mrs. Owens as his parents and Silas, as his Guardian. Oh, and did I mention: they are all ghosts. As he gets older, and begins to crave more of the world, he has "teachers" (ghost of former teachers, poets and travelers) and teacher (but they don't know about him). Bod begins to grow and Silas, his guardian, begins to tell him about the dangers of the outside world, and Jack, the man sent to kill him. Bod meets Scarlett, and his whole world changes...

I think the most beautiful thing about this whole book was the living and growing with Bod and seeing the world as a child would again. The ghost in the graveyard could just as easily be imaginary friends, and yet they are family to Bod. I think that the friendships and relationships that he made with both his parents and his guardian are tools that he will take with him throughout life and that it was almost a resemblance to taking the stories and imaginations from our childhoods and shaping them into our adult lives, sometimes without even realizing it. Again, Gaiman outdoes his creativity and imagination, and brings to life a world that we would not have dreamed of.

"I know my name. I am Nobody Owens. That is who I am."