Ben reviewed American Gods (American Gods, #1) by Neil Gaiman
Good but long
4 stars
I read the 10th anniversary edition, which is longer than the original. It seemed a little slow at times and I think the original edition might be better.
paperback
English language
Published Oct. 8, 2017 by HEADLINE.
Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a stranger offers him a job and Shadow, with nothing to lose, accepts. But a storm is coming. Beneath the placid surface of everyday life, a war is being fought – and the prize is the very soul of America.
An inspired combination of mythology, adventure, and illusion, American Gods is a dark and kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an America at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a contemporary masterpiece.
I read the 10th anniversary edition, which is longer than the original. It seemed a little slow at times and I think the original edition might be better.
I read this both in print and as audiobook. The audiobook version is narrated by Neil Gaiman himself, so it is, of course, amazing.
While I usually read for character development, that isn't a big part of this book--the characters are fun, but you don't come out of it feeling like you know them that well, or, at least, I didn't. Instead, this book is about story and about exploring "what ifs."
It's one of Gaiman's best, which means something.