Book review: The Graveyard Book

Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy (Horror)
Year published: 2010
Pages: ca 300
A place to buy it: If you are in Sweden you can click here to buy the book of Bokus and if that's not the case you can click here to buy it from Amazon.

A boy named Bod

This easy-to-read-story catches the reader in the very first page. A cold blooded murderer named Jack is on a mission to kill a whole family, but somehow the youngest child in the family escapes. Jack refuses to leave his mission incomplete and throughout the book you will continue to meet him. I feel like Jack is the red thread, he is also the evil character that continue to show up throughout the story.

The young child Bod (that Jack wishes to see dead) grows up on a graveyard. The dead care about him, feed him, educate him and warns him about the world outside the graveyard. A friendly couple - dead of course - have adopted him and Bod's life is good. But just like Oliver Twist he is brave and quite adventurous.

How the chapters/book is built 

Every chapter is a bit like a short story where things happen the same way: Bod gets in a bit of trouble but by solving it, not always by himself, he learn new things that can be helpful in the future. I find that the way the chapters are made make it easy to, after you've read the whole book, go back and read your favorite chapter again. (I personally loved chapter 3, it reminds me of Narnia.)

As I said a bit earlier I feel like Jack is the one that binds all the chapters together. It's neatly done and all the things you have read about in the previous chapters get a new purpose.

Final thoughts

I would recommend this book to everyone who want a good read. It's a children's book recommended from 10 years and up but I really didn't feel like I was reading a children's book. I just felt like the book was from Bod's perspective and since he is a child it was nothing strange about that. The author manages to touch important life questions about life, death, friends and bullies in an enjoyable way. But I still can't shake off the feeling that a boy cared for by ghosts are a bit... morbid? Anyhow it's still 10/10 - I recommend!