Neil Gaiman

American Gods

   The extraordinary epic novel from storytelling genius and international bestseller Neil Gaiman. Now brought vividly to life for TV in the highly acclaimed, Emmy-nominated Amazon Prime video seriesstarring Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane and Emily Browning. For fans of Good Omens and His Dark Materials. 'Gaiman is a treasure-house of story and we are lucky to have him' Stephen King After three years in prison, Shadow has served his time. But as the days and hours until his release tick away, he can feel a storm brewing. Two days before his release date, his wife Laura dies in a mysterious car crash, in adulterous circumstances. Dazed, Shadow travels home, only to encounter the bizarre Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America. Together they embark on a very strange journey across the States, along the way solving the murders which have occurred every winter in one small American town. But the storm is about to break . . . Disturbing, gripping and profoundly strange, Gaiman's epic novel sees him on the road to the heart of America.

American Gods #1

Jordan

The people had the glazed, beaten look you only see in airports and prisons. If Hell is other people, thought Shadow, then Purgatory is airports. 

High Fidelity

Then I started reading history books, and Jesus isn't real. And it's like everything that made the world anything more than what it is is just-- is just stories.

Draculelle

“What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not fooling a soul."

brie

WOW! A high 3.75 people.This is one of the times when i wish i were capable of writing a completely comprehensive and long ass review but 1. That’s really hard to do especially if the book is an audiobook and 2. If the book is soooo long that its almost impossible at times to keep up with the entire plot or story OR MULTITUDE of characters.
 Nevertheless, i shall try to do half justice to the book. I really liked the story and the way it seemed to flow endlessly . It reminded me of an endless rain and the soothing sounds from it. The narration was a major part of the listening pleasure because it was that good. I normally do not like listening to an audiobook with a full cast of characters who do the narration but this one, (just like Illuminae), blew my mind. 
Before i started reading American Gods, i had added it to my tbr list for a long time and i kept checking out stuff about it even before i had made up my mind to start reading it yet i still couldn’t figure out what the story was actually about . The story is extremely complex( with stories within stories), yet simple in its linearity. It twists and turns and keeps you immersed as it embraces you through the waves and currents. The prose is absolutely lovely and i will not deny this Neil Gaiman was absolutely meant to be a writer in this life or the next or wherever he would have ended up. Some parts in the story were a bit unnecessary and seemed to go on and on and i found myself zoning out a bit but overall, this was made up for by the well written story and character creation.
 If someone were to ask me what this book is about, i still would not be able to explain it but the only thing i would say to them was that they should pick it up to read because it would definitely pick them up. It was witty, had quick doses of humor which actually worked. I am a very diverse reader or a reader who likes different varieties of qualities in a book or the books i read. This book had a blend of almost everything: Fantasy, romance , humor or comedy, drama, tragedy, etc.
One of the best parts about it in my opinion was the “I believe” monologue. That was a fucking masterpiece.

2017 Popsugar reading challenge : A book that’s been on your tbr list for way too long.






Earlier Review:Excited to watch the TV show after i finish reading this!

Sarah Sammis

Re-reading with the most excellent George Guidall at the helm. 

It's a better audio than print book but I'm just not in the mood for it right now.

Vicky  Nuñez 

There is not better description for this book than the one provided by the author himself, "a big and odd and meandering book."

American Gods is about a convict who is released a few days early because of the death of his wife. On his flight back to his home he meets a strange man who hires him to be his bodyguard. This plunges him into the world of gods and strange beings. 
Neil Gaiman is a master storyteller who knows how to meld complex, well known characters and an urban setting into this strange book. 

 This book personifies modern cultural ideas into beings and is gloriously smart. Its biggest fault is how it sometimes it goes off into tangents, but it is also its biggest strength and quirk.

I wished I had enjoyed it more, but I found my attention wandering off the pages, just like the plot did sometimes.
But it's definitely enjoyable and its incredible ending more than makes up for the trippy ride.

Annotated American Gods

Reading this again with the annotations was so cool. Very fun learning more about all the gods and seeing a lot of stuff that was cut from the original text. Most disappointing part was the Backstage spider. I was hoping for any amount of information on it and there wasn’t a single annotation. I want to know more! Still one of my fave books.

Eli Alvah Huckabee

Bern de Belen

Marie

I've first read this book when I was nineteen. Now, at age 29, it was finally time to read it again and it was every bit as amazing as the first (and second and third) time. Having visited the US many times since I've read this book last, I think I gained an ever deeper understanding for its mythology. Mind blown.

Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, who knows more about Shadow than is possible, warns that a storm is coming -- a battle for the very soul of America . . . and they are in its direct path.

One of the most talked-about books of the new millennium, American Gods is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an American landscape at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a contemporary masterpiece.
--back cover

Laura Mauler

This may just be one of my favorite books.

Neil gaiman’s writing is so interesting and singular. Almost a devoid unemotionally unbiased narrator in a story filled with confused feelings. I loved the use of Americas tourist traps and the beauty of looking in on the religions and gods that followed americas immigrants. Made America almost beautiful but also devastatingly disappearing.

Jehan Chawla

Re read of this book was so good. The thing I loved the most was how Gaiman showcased ancient Gods in their modern counterparts.The gods are indeed the best part of this very good book: degenerate and threadbare, yet still gods, capable of inspiring both allegiance and terror.It's not as twisty/turny surprise-y as it was when I read it last time, but it more than makes up for it with the new thematic things I have the headspace to think about.

César Steven Toribio

I met the gods, or are they the Gods? I am not sure, but I know I met them. And I knew them, and they talked to me, and I was able to see them for who they are. And each god had its own way, its own path, its own existence and its own death. The gods are not infinite but limited and malleable, and human.

American Gods: The Author's Preferred Text

A pleasant read that took me on a journey through America. It was wonderfully written and despite being such a large book was paced well

Jasmine Lawrence

Kairos

First of all, best fantasy fiction about religion and love and self-redemption.

Shadow is a lovable character, he doesn't ask much because he knows not everything needs to be answered. He chose to believe and he stuck with the idea of believing. He jokes around when he meets new people, he has respect for everyone because he doesn't judge people. When the truth revealed itself to him, he accepted it and embraced all the sorrow and unsatisfaction within. Like he said in *SPOILER*, "I want nothing." A life is fulfilled and a will is delivered.

As for the rest, Wednesday is also a fun character. His witty words and lousy attitude always make me smile. Laura is charming and lethal, her uncompromising goals to *SPOILER*. All the other gods, they all made quite a scene in the story and how they interacted and engaged with Shadow were what made this story a fascinating experience.

Religion is about belief and sacrifice. This much is made clear in the book and that's where the story begins. New gods grow stronger and old gods were left forgotten. It's about competition, but as the story progresses, it's more about domination.

Joe Ross

This is the best magical realism I have read yet and the only contemporary author of fiction I have encountered who deserves to sit at the same table as Salman RushdieHe combines the narrative brilliance and popular appeal of someone who has worked in graphic novels/comics for many years with an unusual sense of the novel, both where it should take you and how fast you should get there.

Kamil owca

Shape Mismatch

Original in nature, the book provides immense fodder for thought. It's by and large about the personification of beliefs, a subset of which are gods, mythical in nature, and a war amongst these personas, new v.s. old. The backdrop thus is refreshing, and can be a part of numerous conversations, not all of them being theological in nature.

The plot has some very interesting twists and turns, which although a careful reader can see coming a couple of pages before they hit. Regardless, the plot shines as a good one. 

You're bound to fall in love with the protagonist, although might not connect to him, step in his shoes. Such was his nature, I think. The one who is dynamic, surreal but a part of his head he kept for himself and himself only. Closed. The third person narration might have helped here too.

Doubtless, this is a page turner. A refreshing on at that. Get at it

Joy Bush

It was okay

The whole book I feel like nothing is happening, just preparing for something to happen and a whole big lead up to a big battle that was supposed to happen and 

Spoilers ahead!
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The battle didnt happen at all, which I should have known because thats the same thing that happened in Good Omens. 
I started watching the show, the first 3 episodes which makes the story a lot more alive then it was in the book. 

Im convinced that Neil Gaiman is a great writer but hes in the wrong medium. I dont seem to be enjoying his books but all his stories translate very well to the screen, TV, movies. 
His 2 Doctor Who episodes are my favorite!

A Novel

American Gods [TV Tie-In]

I thought I already marked this one as Read? 

This whole book is like waiting for something to happen, while nothing is actually happening and the thing you are waiting for SPOILERS BELOW




.....doesnt actually happen at all in the end. Which is the twist. Reminds me of the same ending of a different book he wrote.

Cheri Fuller

I listened to this for the first time three years ago. When I started my second listen a few days ago, I couldn't really remember much about it at all, except how much I enjoyed it. 

I truly had forgotten so much that, many times, it was like listening for the first time. I loved it. I will read it again, too. So very good.

Colleen

3.5 Stars

Um... well... erm... I'm still not sure what to think about American Gods. There were some things I really enjoyed about this book. But at the same time... it was meandering, weird, and completely different from Gaiman's usual style. But what I found most off-putting was how crude it was. I know that sounds uptight, but it was not merely that the book contained swearing, violence, and sexual crudeness. It was straight up weird. There were a lot of WTF moments in this book. And if you've read this book, you probably know exactly what the biggest WTF moment was. 

Ok, on to what I did like. 

American Gods mostly follows the story of Shadow, a seemingly average guy who got roped into something bad and now sits quietly serving his prison sentence. Days before his release, he is informed that his wife died under strange circumstances. As Shadow seeks answers, he finds himself involved in something even bigger, something involving those who most people have forgotten: the old gods. The story revolves around mythology. I love mythology especially when someone finds interesting ways of retelling stories that have been around for centuries or longer. And Gaiman definitely found an interesting twist to these myths. He incorporated mythology from all over the world. As the book explains, each group of people who immigrated to the United States brought their own culture and their own gods and it increasingly became a melting pot of beliefs. 

Without giving too much of the plot away, the story involves the old gods and how they are fading away as people turn towards new gods. That brought up two very interesting themes. The first was about loss of cultural identity. The more generations stand between when someone was actually exposed to those beliefs, the more those ties tend to weaken. In the story, the gods need belief in order to stay in existence. But it also made me think in a broader sense about how people often forget their roots as they assimilate into a broader, more diluted population. 


  “Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.” 

The second theme was that of "worship." There are things that we consciously worship. But there are other things that we expend our time and energy and emotion towards, and all of that equates to a kind of worship too. So in the story, all of that obsession created gods of Internet and Television. Those are some of the "new gods" which take all of people's attention away from the old gods who slowly fade out of existence. This book was written before social media really took off or there definitely would have been social media gods as well. How many "gods" have come and gone in the seventeen years since American Gods was first published? How many were consumed by bigger, greedier gods? The god of Goodreads was certainly eaten by the god of Amazon and now only holds up a paper mask in its place. 


  “People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe; and it is that rock solid belief, that makes things happen.”
 
The story also has strong, vivid characters. The plot may wander around an awful lot and there are many, many characters, but they each are easily distinct from each other. I never had trouble remembering who was who because they were each diverse and well written even the ones with minuscule parts. Although I would say this is my least favorite of Gaiman's books, these characters will undoubtedly stay in my mind for a long time. 

There were many times while reading this book that I thought the premise and the characters would pull my rating higher. But then something weird would happen or the plot would go off on some lengthy rabbit trail. My enjoyment often swung like a pendulum while reading it. One of things I usually love about Gaiman's writing is his wry British sense of humor. While there were some snarky moments in American Gods, it lacked that Britishness (understandably I suppose). As I mentioned, the plot wandered around a ton. Looking back, I cannot say quite what took so long. The main plot was straightforward, but there were all of those rabbit trails and day to day filler which did help to build the characters but stretched the plot thin in places. There were also interludes called "Coming to America" which told the stories of various immigrants. These stories had little to nothing to do with the main story other than explaining how some of the gods were brought to America. Some of them were more interesting than others. But it was a strange format. But most off-putting was still the sexual crudeness prevalent in the story.

This seems to be a polarizing book. Most people seem to love it or hate it. It definitely is different from Gaiman's other works although I could see some threads that influenced later works such as Norse Mythology. I wouldn't tell people not to read it, but at the same time, I don't see myself recommending it to most people. I am glad I read it though, bizarre as it was, even if it won't be added to my Favorites list.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars

The storm was coming.... Shadow spent three years in prison, keeping his head down, doing his time. All he wanted was to get back to the loving arms of his wife and to stay out of trouble for the rest of his life. But days before his scheduled release, he learns that his wife has been killed in an accident, and his world becomes a colder place. On the plane ride home to the funeral, Shadow meets a grizzled man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A self-styled grifter and rogue, Wednesday offers Shadow a job. And Shadow, a man with nothing to lose, accepts. But working for the enigmatic Wednesday is not without its price, and Shadow soon learns that his role in Wednesday's schemes will be far more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. Entangled in a world of secrets, he embarks on a wild road trip and encounters, among others, the murderous Czernobog, the impish Mr. Nancy, and the beautiful Easter -- all of whom seem to know more about Shadow than he himself does. Shadow will learn that the past does not die, that everyone, including his late wife, had secrets, and that the stakes are higher than anyone could have imagined. All around them a storm of epic proportions threatens to break. Soon Shadow and Wednesday will be swept up into a conflict as old as humanity itself. For beneath the placid surface of everyday life a war is being fought -- and the prize is the very soul of America. As unsettling as it is exhilarating, American Gods is a dark and kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an America at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. Magnificently told, this work of literary magic will haunt the reader far beyond the final page.

ivan

The first half of the book was really slow moving and picked up around the 60% mark imo. I did enjoy how Shaow unraveled the identities of the gods — albeit a bit slow, there is that feeling of uncertainty esp since Shadow can be unreliable at times.

Cat Josephson

This just seemed a bit too slow-paced for me, at least in the beginning. It got a bit better after the first 150/200 pages.

Author's Preferred Text

Audrey Lord

very hard read but interesting nonetheless. what an adventure.

Jimmy Cerone

A fascinating book about America, in an imaginary world that somehow describes it better than the real one.

Rohan Uddin

Great dialogues. Essentially a road-trip novel, with large-scale theme(s). Liked the story. But did it sag in the middle? Maybe just a little. The many interconnected tales are a product of Gaiman's great imagination.
Good be a great source for a television mini-series. HBO, no doubt.

American Gods

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