MirrorMask was originally a
film directed by Neil Gaiman’s longtime collaborator Dave McKean.  The story is
a teen girl whose family owns a circus.  Helen wants to run away from the circus,
and in an argument with her mother, tells says that she hopes that she will be
the death of her mother.  Helen’s mother becomes ill and everyone is worried. 
Most of the plot takes place within Helen’s dream, in which Helen goes into
another world where people from her real life have counterparts.  She
encounters her double, who wants to escape from the dreamworld.  There are
themes of growing up, self-discovery, differentiation from others, and
overcoming obstacles.  However, to a large extent the interest and charm of the
film is visual, and the plot does not make a great deal of sense.  After the
movie was made, Gaiman and McKean collaborated on a graphic novel together, in
similar format to the many books they had made together before.  This book can
also take advantage of the visual elements of the movie.  However, the
unabridged audiobook with text by Neil Gaiman, performed by Stephanie Leonidas,
star of the film, is only able to try to evoke the visual elements through the
use of words, and it doesn’t succeed well.  The story is full of magic in the dream
logic of Helena’s surreal world.  These elements are entertaining if you like
that sort of thing, but they do not add up to a coherent whole.  Maybe Gaiman’s
most devoted fans would enjoy this audiobook, but most other people would do
best to stick to the feature-packed DVD of MirrorMask.