Book of The Year: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

About this time last year, i decided to make a 3 resolutions for 2009, one of them was to read 24 books in a year (let’s not mention anything about the other two resolutions).

Apparently i had a lot more time on my hands this year that I thought I would have, i read almost 50 books in total since January. And if I were to pick one book that stood out above the rest, the choice was easy.

No, it wasn’t Twilight.

The Graveyard Book is my Book of the Year, because it’s simplicity and beauty blew my mind away. It didn’t really matter that Gaiman is my favourite author, this book one of his best.

The story is simple, about a baby who escapes a murderer and wanders into a graveyard. He is protected by the ghosts of the graveyard and is brought up by them until he reaches adolescence. In its essence, this is a coming-of-age story, about a boy dealing with alienation from the outside world, and the strange relationship he has with the many ghostly residents of the graveyard. And then there is the enigmatic vampire Silas, tasked to educate and protect the boy.

Gaiman writes with his usual easy style, with a storyline rich in fantasy and folklore (i especially like the Lady on the Grey and Dance the Macabray). Some themes are revisited from his earlier books, many are borrowed from popular myths and legends, that’s something that makes Gaiman such a talented writer.

I’ll definitely re-read the Graveyard Book again soon, there aren’t many books that gripped me as much as it did. On the downside, it was perhaps too short an adventure for Bod Owens. The other thing is that while the ending is bittersweet and fitting, I really wished that Gaiman could have added an epilogue about to give a finality to Bod’s journey in life. Maybe he will write a sequel, who knows? Maybe not 🙂

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Yep, so that’s my book of the year. Another great book deserves a mention as a runner-up, I’ll blog about it next.