The first book by Neil Gaiman that I tried and failed to read, was Neverwhere. For some unfathomable reason, it would not hold my attention. As much as I wanted to like and enjoy his work – after all, I adored The Nightmare Before Christmas and the one Sandman comic I owned – it was a hopeless endeavor.

I put the book down.

It gathered some dust.

I got rid of it at some point in time.

That being said, I went into his work again with no small amount of skepticism. You might be wondering, whatever drew you to this book now? The simple answer? It has pictures in it. I’ve always been a sucker for an illustrated book. Make those illustrations a little dark and strange to go with a book that’s just the same, and it’s a baited hook I can’t refuse.

Let’s get into the meat of the review, shall we?

The Graveyard Book is the story of Nobody Owens, Bod for short. Nobody lives in a graveyard, raised by ghosts, guarded by his not quite alive, not quite dead guardian, and is being hunted by the man Jack who murdered his family. It follows Nobody Owens as he grows up among his strange family, learning about Goblin gates, fading from notice, dream walking and more.

While the story is based on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book – Owens learning to join the living rather than a wild boy learning to be human – the actual writing itself reminded me much more of Peter Pan. Even though the book opens with murder and does, eventually, build up to that moment of completion, it never strays from the child heart it’s centered around. For most of the book you follow Bod who’s growing up the same as all of us. He makes friends, and grows out of them. He’s told not to do something, and he does it only to learn from it. He has a shallow understanding of what happens to his parents but the danger is real to him in that distant, innocent way it usually is to kids that comes from a lack of proper understanding of what it means to die.

Overall I found the book enjoyable. It was exactly the kind of darkly innocent, relaxing read I was looking for. If I were going to nit-pick it for anything it would be that sometimes the plot can be a bit choppy and there was a point in the book when Owens seemed to mature very quickly. I had to go back and make sure I didn’t accidentally skip a chapter. I wish Neil had delved deeper into some of the elements – like the origin of our nefarious Jack, the enigmatic Pale Lady, and the Danse Macabre. At the same time, those little mysteries suit me just fine. They always made stories feel more real to me.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants an easy, engaging, and darkly delightful read. I’d say it’s best for rainy days in bed but, come on, read it on a beach. Be that ghost on the sandy sea of trashy romance novels.

Until next time~

“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”