Name: Matthew Jackson's review of American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Item: American Gods
Rating: 5
Author: Matthew Jackson

Neil Gaiman

American Gods

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.

   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

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."

Matthew Jackson

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.

Anna Ureta

I would give this a 3.5 but goodreads can't do .5 - not enough for a 4 IMHO 

The middle part dragged on.... it felt like filler... but when it actually came together in the end I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

Stefanie Viens

I was blown away by this book. The concept in itself is brilliant, the style is efficient and imaginative and the main character is easy to sympathize with.

Rachel Kanyid

Not my favorite book ever, but definitely interesting and engaging. I would recommend it to anyone who liked magical realism and more gruff main characters.

Trish

I'll be frank, I did not like this book. It was too outlandish and weird for me. I appreciate the uniqueness of Gaiman's story, but American Gods was simply not my cup of tea. Neither the plot, settings nor characters did anything for me and, unfortunately, this is most likely the last time I'll ever pick up a book by Neil Gaiman.

Joshua Line

This book would have been great to my twenty-year old self. I'm no longer in that place...

Izza

4.5 stars | This was great! I can't wait to see the TV show adaptation they make. Ricky Whittle is going to make a fine Shadow! :D

Cindy Lieberman

“Religions are, by definition, metaphors, after all: God is a dream, a hope, a woman, an ironist, a father, a city, a house of many rooms, a watchmaker who left his prize chronometer in the desert, someone who loves you—even, perhaps, against all evidence, a celestial being whose only interest is to make sure your football team, army, business, or marriage thrives, prospers, and triumphs over all opposition."
This is a sweeping story about the "old gods" fighting to remain relevant to Americans who are busy worshiping the "new gods" (such as television, drugs, money, etc). The main character, Shadow, has a strong moral center which makes him easy to root for as he encounters many obstacles while working for his old-god boss.

Haley Murray

What can i say that hasn't already been said. Great book.

Kirsten Simkiss

** spoiler alert **
           I honestly just didn't like it that much. It was an interesting read, and I see why it's being made into a TV series because I think that at least this book would lend itself well to a television adaptation. I will probably read the next book, just to see where the plot gets taken from this point onward, but it won't be high on my priority list I don't think.

I have no real complaints about characters or the general plot or anything like that. But the pace of the book is what really didn't sell me, as much as I hoped it would, this grand battle for who were the true gods of America. The main character is interesting and looks at things in a different light that many others might. The plot twists were interesting and, for the most part, unexpected. The ending ties everything up well. 

But, as I said, the pace of the book just didn't sell it for me. The main character spends most of the book very calm and collected. Nothing phases him. If something surprises him, he just goes through the motions very calmly and never really panics or gets angry or anything despite everything that happens to him. One of the characters, Laura, says to him that he isn't really alive because he's so unaffected by the happenings in the world. On the one hand, it's a very admirable thing to never overreact or panic - just accepting things as they come. He passes no judgement on anyone and accepts everyone for what they are, which is probably remarkably important for a main character in his shoes. However, you never really get a strong feeling of what he believes in - not in terms of gods, as you might think, but what really drives him to be him. He likes coin tricks, of course, and surely you can say he was loyal, but he's not particularly remarkable to me in much of any other respect. He has no real interest in what he's aiming for or who he'd like to be. You get a smattering of past events, descriptions of a quiet child who was always quiet so they called him Shadow. Seeing everything from his perspective was just... peaceful. And because it was so peaceful, it was very slow for me. I think it would have been more fun to read the whole book from Sam's perspective, or a minor gods' perspective. Someone with more "life" to them, as Laura might have said.

I really did love the world and the concepts behind the world. I think my favorite characters were Mr. Ibis and Mr. Nancy, who were both very lively and very different creatures. I hope we get to see more of them in the next book because I enjoyed them a great deal.

Philip Young

Interesting book, I am sure there is a whole bunch of symbolism and hidden meaning that I never got. It kept me entertained and made me think. I will probably read it again in a few years.

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American Gods by Neil Gaiman

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