The Shadows by Jacqueline West

Any book that is compared to Coraline is one that I will be trying. Sometimes, literary comparisons are off, but this one was great - fun and a little spooky and with cats.

The Shadows follows the journey of Olive as she and her mathematician parents move into their new house, which comes with creepy furniture. Unlike her parents, Olive isn't good at maths (I feel a connection to her already). Luckily for her, she doesn't need maths for what happens.

It turns out that this house is... not normal. Olive can enter paintings and talk to the people inside, and there are three cats that talk to her too. Unfortunately, cats will be cats and their hints were a little too cryptic. As a result, Olive accidentally unleashes evil onto the house and has to remedy it.

The book has a fantastic protagonist in Olive. She's likable and plucky, and I liked that she got herself out of the mistakes she made (also, she didn't like everyone, but still apologised when she was wrong). She made a great team with the three cats, whom I'd like to meet.

The cats are: Horatio, who's a bit cranky and cryptic, Leopold, who's very polite and I just want to cuddle him, and Harvey, who takes on different personalities and serves as comedic relief sometimes.

There's also Morton, a strange boy who isn't who he seems to be. He's also a little annoying so I don't have much to say about him. He was one of the people who introduced Olive to this odd world, though, so he is a fairly important character.

The book is apparently part of a series, but it reads well as a standalone. There is one loose end, but it doesn't make me want to read the second book immediately. (And I'm torn on whether I want to read the second book because I have no idea if it's as good as this one.)

Oh, and this isn't as scary as Coraline, although it is a bit creepy. But I do agree that fans of Coraline will like this. At least I did.