Coraline?

I found the story Coraline to be a very strange story and a few days later I realized the animated movie Coraline was the same story. I never watched the movie, but I believe I should do so to get a better understanding of this short story. Coraline is an adventurous girl and she calls herself an explorer, but what is the concept of the hidden room that Coraline stumbles upon? And why does she have a second set of parents? Everything is parallel to her real life, but things seem very off and have hidden secrets. I don't think the story was clear through the comic, but after all it was based on a much more detailed novel. Since the novel was made into a movie and the movie got high ratings the story must be far more interesting than what I'm getting from it.  

Thumbs up to Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao surprisingly turned out to be a great story. I found myself reading this book during my leisure time this summer. I think what made it so enjoyable was the author's, Junot Diaz's writing style. The way the narrator spoke to the audience was very intimate and most of the time was in slang. Even in the footnotes where the narrator wanted to give us a little background information about the Dominican Republic his tone was very sarcastic. The narrator's tone and way of speaking to the audience added humor to the story. Even when Diaz added Dominican Spanish terms I was able to figure out what it meant. I plan on reading Diaz's other novel, Drown next because I was very impressed by this one.