The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This is one of those books that I've been waiting to read for a while.

Usually I'm pretty aware when one of my authors is about to put out a new book. I don't necessarily track them, but I tend to keep an eye out and the digital commercial overlords are usually pretty good about notification. However, I tripped across this book when on a trip with some friends in Asheville. It came out of nowhere really. That was a couple of years ago.

I've been avoiding buying books (they just sort of collect up in drifts against the walls when I'm not looking) and there have been so many other things out there on my list to read. One of my coworkers had this lying around and he handed it to me at the beginning of break. So, I figured it was time to get around with it.

Gaiman's written a lot of different types of literature. He writes graphic novels, short stories, adult novels, picture books, kids lit, and now middle reader/YA. Thematically, he tends to stick to a kind of benign dark fantasy.

The Graveyard Book is the story of a toddler who miraculously escapes a serial killer and ends up raised by a cemetery full of benevolent ghosts (and one.... I think he's meant to be a vampire.) The boy grows up, but the killer is still out there. The ghosts try to educate him, but there are problems of course.

If I have a criticism, it's that having introduced the villain he sort of disappears and it is unclear through most of the text that there is anything really supernatural about him at all. He could just be a maniac, after all. Of course there is something up with him, and it does become clear eventually.

It's a fun read read: quick and satisfying.