Adapted by Megan Shepherd
Rating: 3/5 stars!
Length: 304 pages
Format: Physical, Hardcover (Barnes and Noble Exclusive Cover)
Started: 10/08/2023
Finished: 10/13/2023
Okay, this one hurt. And not in the way I typically expect from books. I went in knowing this was an adaptation and that a novelization living up to one of my all-time favorite movies would be a tough, but I went in full-force and expected MAGIC. But this fell through…
Nightmare Before Christmas is full of wonderfully spooky, magical, and joyous whimsy. There are songs, cheer (even if easily construed as fright to outsiders of Haloweentown), love, and curiosity. Some of these things can still be picked up in the book, but it doesn’t hit the same. There’s something missing and a lot of inconsistencies. It makes me so sad to write such mean things about one of my favorite stories, but this novelization just did not do Nightmare Before Christmas justice even with this book being geared towards Young Adult readers. My 3-stars are more for the nostalgia than the book itself, otherwise I would have given the book closer to a 2-star rating. This really made it hard for me to sit down and write this review, so apologies it took so long to get out to you.
Many of the opening descriptors are shallow, the song to dialogue adaptations are lacking, and there was no creative liberty taken. With this novelization, there’s a huge opportunity to provide more humanization to the characters, get in their head, and provide deeper descriptions from their points of view. Yet, characters felt one-dimensional, and descriptions felt lifeless.
I also have a large bone to pick with what the author chose for Jack to recognize in Christmastown. This is one of the most iconic parts of the film, he literally knows NOTHING. There’s only one explanation by the author for a single recollection, “snow” reminding Jack faintly of a yeti. Nothing else he recognizes is explained. Now, I do appreciate and love this creative liberty taken, but it feels a tad contrived and does not align with the cannon of him LITERALLY knowing NOTHING. Perhaps if he had had a different recollection of his living life, I wouldn’t feel so salty about it, but this inconsistency just isn’t it for me.
One thing I did enjoy was the chapter heading countdown to Halloween changing to a countdown to Christmas. The timeline, however, wasn’t quite right to me. The book had members of Halloweentown aiming for Christmas of the following year, 14 months in the future. I’m fairly certain the movie had them prepare everything in just the two months between their Halloween celebrations and the upcoming Christmas. I could be wrong here, but the timeline felt far too long. Perhaps my memory’s timeline was just mistaken?
There are huge, important themes throughout Nightmare Before Christmas which is why it remains one of my top stories ever.
- How easily misinformation spreads (Jack’s “death” delivering presents, thanks to the Mayor).
- The importance of admitting wrongdoing, accepting accountability, asking for forgiveness, and correcting the infraction(s).
- Don’t try to change yourself to fit into an impossible mold (Jack is the Pumpkin King, not Jack Frost and changing his entire identity wouldn’t change the fact that he’s unhappy. He needed companionship, not an identity overhaul.).
I also had a few head-cannons that I can’t not share (if you want more on these, let me know and I’ll gladly go more in-depth!):
- Lock, Shock, and Barrel are murder victims (perhaps from the same Halloween/Trick or Treating night, perhaps from the same killer, perhaps completely random).
- Oogie Boogie’s lair as Vegas?
- Zero’s nose glowing is relevant to Jack’s confidence.
- The Mayor having two faces and being in politics was definitely lost on me in my childhood!
*These could very-well be cannon already, or just something my adult mind picked up on that my childhood mind glazed over, but I found them fascinating.
Welp, as Sally says on page 93, “Sweet Nightmares”. I’ll be back soon with a less disappointing read.
XOXO
La Biblio-Fille 