A review by optimisms
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book is lovely. It's dark but witty, heavy but charming. The prose of this story is so beautiful, never unnecessarily flowery or complex but you can tell that each word was chosen with care. The structure of the book is almost an anthology of short stories, but all with the same chronology, setting, and main characters. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that the ending does a great job of tying in most of the previous stories in surprising and entertaining ways. The only things I would change are
I wish we had more information about Silas and what he is. I've seen a lot of people say he is clearly a vampire and maybe I'm just oblivious but that was not at all obvious to me
and
the Danse Macabre. Every other chapter somehow tied into the ending, but nothing from Danse Macabre ever came back or had any impact on the ending
. Other than that, it was pretty much perfect. I would highly recommend anyone who's interested in this book to check out the audiobook, read by the author himself. Gaiman gives a fantastic performance, bringing the story to life in a truly remarkable fashion. It's difficult to decide whether he's a better author or voice actor.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings