The Graveyard Book

I think I would have loved this book when I was younger. I really liked it, but I agree with the reviews that say the beginning and end are the strongest parts. That beginning was honestly fantastic. I could see what the middle chapters were doing/trying to accomplish, but every chapter felt like its own short story. I wasn't a huge fan of that, but I really liked how some of the relationships were handled. I think Neil Gaiman did a really great job of showing and not telling... He never even tells us big things about certain characters, yet you know those things are true because of what they say and how they act. It's very well done. The end could've gone further than it did, but if this is a middle grade book I'd say it's good where it's at. Overall, I think I would have rated this 5 stars in middle school, adult me is leaning closer to 3 (mainly because of the flow of the middle chapters), so we're going with 4.