“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 foolin’ a soul.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

I picked up the extended tenth-anniversary edition of American Gods. At 742 pages it was more a marathon than a sprint, so bring a snack!

Shadow Moon’s journey is interwoven with flashback stories of the old gods coming to the new world. In the midst of it all is a war between the old gods and the new ones, and Gaiman did a good job of fashioning the magical realism needed to carry the story. The book started off with a bang, but in the middle I found my mind wandering, then the pacing would pick up and propel me further along. Shadow Moon, the primary protagonist, is a well-developed character, but then the character evolution of the gods stalled until they seemed little more than a side note by the end of the story. The wrap-up, too, was somewhat anti-climactic for me, I wanted so much more.

All that being said, the book is a decent read and Gaiman is clearly a good writer; just not my cup of tea, sadly. I wouldn’t recommend this tenth anniversary extended edition to any but the most die-hard Gaiman fan, since it is extremely long.

I was initially excited to read this novel and, despite not holding my interest at times, it was good overall.
Is it worth reading? Definitely!

Reto 12 libros - 12 meses del grupo  Sangre de tinta
Mayo - Un libro con magia

Este es uno de los libros más extraños que he leído, sale de todos los esquemas tradicionales, cuando te vuelves un lector asiduo más o menos sabes cómo será el curso de las tramas de las historias, este libro me sorprendió a cada paso, cada que pensaba ahora va a suceder esto, resultaba que no.

Empieza con un protagonista fuera de lo común, un convicto pronto a ser liberado para poder reunirse con su esposa, ya desde allí empecé a hacerme ideas que no sucederían...

Y a pesar de todo esto, me gusto, no, me encanto, al leerlo se volvía algo adictivo, por eso lo recomiendo a todos. Lo que más atrae es que incluye mitologías y dioses de varios panteones, nórdicos, irlandeses, árabes, egipcios, japoneses, y muchos más (irónicamente casi nada griego o romano que son con los que estoy familiarizado), además habla sobre los nuevos dioses de culto en América, los dioses de la tecnología, de la televisión, del dinero, de la Internet, de las drogas y muchos otros.

Por si fuera poco, también es un thriller, donde hay unas misteriosas desapariciones, que puede que al principio no llamen mucho la atención, pero cuando se resuelven, te volaran la cabeza.

Una razón más para leerlo es que, recientemente se estrenó la serie de televisión que está basada en esta historia de Dioses, la cual pienso ver pronto.

Si no temen salir de su zona de confort como lectores, y quieren probar algo diferente, este libro definitivamente es para ustedes.

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.”--Neil Gaiman

So, based on your seeing my rating, you can tell I didn’t love this book, which I spent all of 21 hours listening to. In part it could be explained in terms of my disinterest in this kind of fantasy/horror. Some of it is about the fact that for hours on end not much actually happens. Another dimentiosn is that many of the chacaters don’t quite come alive for me in the way I like fictional characters to do. They seem like ideas of characters rather than fully flesh and bone versions of humans. Then again, it could just have been me in this moment of reading, and it might be different if I read it again later. Maybe. I’m going to see the tv series and maybe this will help make the story come alive.At this point, first reading, I rate this 3, maybe 3.25.

But there’s at least three (okay, five) different ways of thinking of American Gods that occurred to me in the reading of this book. At least.

1)tIt is one of three epic, sweeping “road” tales focused more on the American West (as most American road tales do) than East--each of them written by a Brit!--that I have read recently, including Garth Ennis’s Preacher comics series, and Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. These are three American love-hate tales, told by Brits. Gaiman, a mentee of Moore, has more in common with Moore than Ennis, but they are all in one central sense making moral commentaries on the American scene, travelogues of depravity and celebration and despair. All three involve the presence of the supernatural/gods/superheroes as omnipresent in American life. I much preferred Swamp Thing and Preacher to American Gods; both of them have more texture and complexity and life than American Gods. But why three Brits writing travelogues of the US of A? What is that about?!

2)tIn preparation for a class I am teaching this summer (2017) about Young Adult Graphic Novels with a focus on girls/women, I have had in my head that we are in a feminist revolutionary period for comics. Today strong and interesting female characters abound. Gaiman’s story, written twenty years ago, is missing this element. Shadow’s (dead) ex-wife Laura pops up on occasion, and she is pretty interesting, but most of the other women are just sexual objects—pickups, raped slaves, prostitutes, and so on—and not objects of admiration. Mainly objects of derision and resentment. I have heard people think of Gaiman as a misogynist, not a good writer of female characters especially in his earlier work, and I have generally disagreed with this assessment (cf Death, in the Sandman, Coraline, the women in Ocean at the End of the lane, all great), but I can see where it comes from, this criticism, regarding this book. Where are the strong women?

3)tIt’s a story of the omnipresence of gods (Odin, Medea, and so on, yes, but also just everyday gods, good/evil/morally compromised ones, and so on) or “gods” (money, fame, and so on) in the scope of American history, as with Preacher and Swamp Thing, with Howard Zinn’s The People’s Guide to America History as its Baedeker. Just as it was for Moore’s Swamp Thing, we touch on slavery, Native American genocide, Native American spirituality. But with the exception of Wednesday (the name of one central character) these gods don’t really achieve memorable status for me. The whol “battle” between the new gods and old gods, eh.

4)tI was born in Chicago, having lived in Wisconsin and now live in Chicago, so I was amused by (particularly) Gaiman’s depiction of the midwest, including such oddities as The House on the Rock outside of Madison, Wisconsin. His view of northern Wisconsin, and Michigan’s U. P. (Upper Peninsula), with its pasties, all this is familiar and still amusingly weird to me, so to see places I have loved and visited framed as a kind off spiritual wasteland (as in Wisconsin Death Trip), that is interesting.

5)tI am a huge fan of Gaiman, including his kid books like The Graveyard Book, Coraline, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, all excellent for me, but this is supposed to be his Big Book, and millions of people loved it, so I am a little hesitant, but I have to say I just didn’t love it.

I am writing this review ten months after I started this book, and eight months after finishing it, because in addition to me taking two-thirds of a year to get around to penciling in some thoughts I also took straight up sixty days to read it.

Well, not read it. Listen to it.

This is the first audiobook I have ever listened to, and it is twenty hours long. This event caused me to give myself the well-earned and extremely catchy nickname “the real American God of this whole situation - get it because that’s the title of the book? Funny, right? Yeah.”

I have read five Neil Gaiman books, and I have given three of them five stars. THREE OF THEM. THREE OUT OF FIVE. SIXTY PERCENT. What a track record!

I have three starred the other two. One of them was Fortunately, the Milk, which, like, who cares at all, and the other was this book.

This didn’t feel Gaiman-y to me. The books of his I’ve five starred have been a touch creepy, magic-feeling, atmospheric. The language has been amazing and the depictions of the world (and of childhood) are unparalleled and I’ve come away from each one with a changed view of the world that sticks with me fully for days, and remains in bits and pieces for the foreseeable future. They’re quotable and memorable and gorgeous and visceral and I can imagine rereading them immediately after finishing them.

This book was NONE OF THOSE THINGS.

It was okay. That’s it.

Unfortunately my thoughts on this are inextricable from my listening experience, and double unfortunately that will never be corrected because I’m not going to reread this. (Or, really, read it for the first time. Because of the whole listening thing. Ugh you get what I mean.)

I was more excited about the concept of this book than I’ve been for any Gaiman stuff, and loooooook where it got me. This sounds so flippin’ cool and instead it’s boring and confusing. The characters are as interesting as the underside of most shoes (this in spite of the fact that most of them are ANCIENT GODS, so that’s quite a feat). The plotline is not gripping.

A book whose main conceit is that every god that has ever been worshipped exists should be fascinating. A book in which that is true and also the gods are going to war should be fascinating AND fun. A book in which the aforementioned is true and also it is written by Neil Gaiman should be fascinating and fun AND full-on amazing.

American Gods is none of those things and it will be the great quest of my remaining days on this earth to figure out why the hell not.

Neil, if you’re reading this, shoot me an email.

Bottom line: I’M SORRY I DIDN’T LIKE THIS I’M CONFUSED AND UPSET EVEN EIGHT MONTHS AFTER THE FACT SO CUT ME SOME SLACK OK. Emotional turmoil central over here.


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currently-reading updates

yes, this is the 7th book i'm currently reading. what of it? please send help.

the first book in my audiobook extravaganza! thanks to Caidyn and James for recommending.

Do you ever read a book and become completely lost in the words and, ultimately, wonder what is actually happening? Well, I do. So, I go back and read the bits I may not have picked up or accidently skimmed over. This allows me to actually understand the book. I tried doing that with this, and I quickly realised that I still had no idea what was going on. The plot of this felt completely random, drawn out to the point of ridiculousness and the events, themselves, felt incoherent. I have no idea why most of the events actually happened in here, and at this point, I can honestly say that just I don’t care anymore.

Did I miss something?

The book begins with the protagonist, Shadow, finishing his prison sentence. On the day of release his wife is killed in a car accident. What initially appears as mere bad fortune slowly evolves into what can only be considered as something much odder. His wife’s ghost visits him, and assists him in the random events he then encounters. I say random because that’s exactly what this book is. The events that occurred had no discernible point. I kept expecting to see some reasoning behind it all, but just couldn’t.

Perhaps I missed something. But the plot of this felt barely connected. There was an overall lack of cohesion and plot driver. I had very little reason to read this, and as I got further and further into it, I had even less. The book seemed to be going in a weird direction of its own that felt completely ungraspable. I just don’t understand the point of most of it; the characters all felt like they belonged in a psyche ward. I understand the overall meaning of the book, but the way in which the author presented it was awful. The actual events and scenes that took place were bizarre to the point of them having no purpose. For me, this book needed much more than just an overall juxtaposition of god types; it needed to be enjoyable on the surface level as well; it needed a proper plot.

This book almost killed me

  

If a book bores me this much, and confuses me this much, when reading, the overall message of the book cannot save it in my estimation. The reading process was dull and plain arduous, I wanted to cry at points because it was that bad. Indeed, I had to force myself to complete reading this incredibly packed out, and rambling piece of randomness. If someone asked me to give a concise summary of the book, and tell them what happened, I’d be unable to complete the task. Perhaps it’s just me, but this book is so strange. I have nothing positive to say about it, in any respect, and absolutely hated reading it. I just can’t appreciate what Gainman was trying to achieve because he did it such a roundabout way.

I simply detest this book. It was an absolute trudge to finish it. This just seemed far too long. The message that the author was trying to capture could have been done in half the word count. Perhaps, it doesn’t help that my copy was the original version, which means its twelve thousand words longer than the normal one. For me, this meant that there were entire chapters that were completely pointless. Nothing happened in them, and nothing was achieved through them. At points, this novel felt like a connected series of events that could barely be considered a plot. It will, indeed, be many months before I pick up another book by this author, maybe even years, maybe not ever again. I’ll never forgive the author for this tripe.

A very disheartened one star

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“Every hour wounds. The last one kills.”

This is one of the books I put off reviewing, there's a difficulty in wrapping up my enjoyment in mere words and not come across as sounding too flat. It's hard to cover a book effectively that dares to be so creative in its scope, because I know I won't cover everything. Hell, I know I didn't even get everything. It probably reveals more of itself with each reread.

Essentially a play on people's beliefs and how the strength in that can shape people, cultures and eventually societies. People sometimes let go of old gods and beliefs, either by not believing anymore and paying little attention, or else forgetting them completely. The other half just adopts new ones and recycles them out quickly and irreverently as new technologies merge. American Gods shows those that originally existed, to become strengthened by the people who worship them, and the new ones who were completely birthed because people wanted/needed them at the time. The book is that but oh-so-much more too.

See, already I'm rambling in this review...

It follows Shadow as a main character, a man freshly out of prison and a new widow. He runs into another man who clearly holds supernatural prowess but much mystery - should Shadow trust and follow Mr Wednesday so freely? As a man with little to lose and very little to gain, Shadow falls into a seemingly benign job that comes to have world-wide potential. Shadow makes a worthy main character to follow - he thinks for himself but he follows a little blindly, realizing that he doesn't have to get everything before he commits to each. Wednesday is epic and holds surprises, a favorite of mine. There are plenty of characters - supernaturally touched or not - and all are them are well created and useful in the story. Laura surprised me by being one of the best side characters.

Gaiman's writing style is smooth going and an easy addiction. His words flow into each well and he dishes out dialogue that's easy to hang on to. To say he's creative with his story structure and surprises is a little bit of an understatement. I had pre-guessed some of the revelations, but never all of them.

I get the bulk of the story, but there are small tendrils that confuse me. Such as this (only read if you've read the book) Obviously for the ritual to take place, he would have had to known it would be done since it needed to be done by someone (spear in side). I have to say I don't get why he told him not to mess with him earlier because he didn't want him to ever be a martyr, when he really wanted him to become one - I'm assuming he was telling Mr. Town something, knowing he would do the opposite, like reverse psychology. It's a little confusing.

The book gets brownie points for this alone -

“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 foolin’ a soul.”

Overall it's an epic novel that should be experienced. I'm ignorant on mythology so some of this was over my head, but it was still creatively constructed, beautifully written, and rewarded my interest with fascinating twists.

This my second book of Gaimans. I really need to check out his Sandman series next.

This book reads like a comic book novelization of a story born from the limited imagination of a brooding adolescent boy. The lack of elegance shrieks at you. Depth is nowhere to be seen. It’s dull, rough, unsophisticated, and - despite the potential of the main concept - abysmally empty.

The hype for this novel in the marketplace doesn’t surprise me: the mass-market has the refined taste of a wild boar.

Valores Invertidos


Os deuses mitológicos estão associados a fenómenos naturais e outras coisas mais.

"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous."

Shadow is serving out the last days of his prison sentence when he learns that his wife, Laura, has died in a car accident. Upon his journey home he encounters the mysterious Mr Wednesday who offers him a job as a bodyguard.

Okay, so American Gods and I got off to a rough start. I enjoyed the first 50 pages or so, I was intrigued, excited to see what was coming next... and then for some reason, the following 150 pages started to bore me slightly and I felt a lot of confusion as to what the actual point of the story was. BUT THEN, BUT THEN!! It really picked up and I was sucked into this world that Gaiman had created. This is why I don't DNF books - I easily could have tossed this book to the side and missed out on an incredible book.

It's quite funny how my opinions changed throughout reading this one. Initially I wasn't a fan of the random interludes with stories about how the old gods came to America, mythology is not one of my favourite things to read about. However, by the half way mark these parts became a highlight for me and I found them fascinating. The concept of a war between the old gods and the new gods (like television, internet, technology) was a really unique one and once the ball really got rolling I was fully invested in the outcome. The old gods are under threat from the new, people don't believe in them anymore, they don't make sacrifices to them, so the old gods are fading away. They need to step up to the new gods before they become completely obsolete.

One of the disappointing parts for me was the main protagonist, Shadow - I liked him, but at the same time he was just a bit...bland. It felt like he was simply there to serve the purpose of the story and he was surrounded by many characters that were a lot more interesting and charismatic than he was - but perhaps that is point?

Some of the storylines felt a bit random and disjointed throughout the course of the novel, but as they met their climax towards the end, my mind was exploding all over the place! I fucking LOVED the last 100 pages or so. I was shook on more than one occasion. I'm actually really glad that my edition had an extra American Gods-related novella called The Monarch of the Glen, because I just wasn't ready to leave this semi-fantastical world that Gaiman has created. Loved the novella!!

I ended up loving this book but had to deduct a star for the rocky start!! 4 stars.

I did like this, I liked this very much.

This was on my to read list and given I’ve never heard of the guy before it must have been recommended to me by someone. No idea who, though. It is a little surprising that when I looked no one I knew had reviewed this book. What had inspired me to read it is lost now.

A friend of mine wrote to me last week about her son’s interest in magic tricks – now, that must be the first time in years that I’ve thought about magic at all. So, when this one started and the main character turns out to like doing coin tricks I had that strange feeling one sometimes gets when a couple of unexpected lines cross just as your passing and catch your heel so as to make you stumble and skip for a step or two.

There is a Gary Larson cartoon stacked full of all of the gods that no one believes in anymore – I can barely remember it – some sort of retirement home for forgotten gods. If you took that cartoon, stirred in some Tom Waits, added a dash or two of Joseph Campbell, sprinkled a handful of jet black humour, creamed in a murder mystery and plopped a few cubes of Houdini’s more impressive escape acts you might have some idea what this book is like.

More than once I laughed with pure delight, though more often I just smiled at how nicely this was written and how well the story was handled. Okay, it nearly got away from him towards the end and there was probably just a bit too much talking to camera at one point which is always the least impressive way to explain a major plotting point – even after all this had been handled so much competently (ie trusting the reader more) earlier in the book – I still loved this book.

The idea of the Gods being virtually unemployed and eking out a living on road kill or through prostitution was very amusing. Some of the asides were as interesting as the story itself. Who would have thought that Genies would be such queer things?

I’m not really one to read fantasy novels, but this one was quite something. Clever, fast paced and with themes of life, death, love, revenge, obligation, gratitude, desire, loss and the right time for things to happen – how could I not like this book?

I don't believe in God or Gods or so many things - but in fiction, when a mysterious character says, "Believe"... When that happens, I believe. I don't need Gods, but I do need myths and stories and the psychological truths they reveal.

"Read Gaiman!" they say. "I can't believe you've never read Gaiman! You have GOT TO read Gaiman!" "Gaiman is SUCH an important part of popular culture and one of the BEST contemporary writers! You HAVE TO READ GAIMAN!"

Well, I've read Gaiman now.

Hi Gaiman!
Bye Gaiman!


Let me quote:
"American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit."

I agree with everything but the beginning and the end. It certainly was scary, strange and hallucinogenic.
None of it in a good way.

I like nothing about this book. Not liking it isn't very difficult, because I have honestly no idea what was going on. Not that I didn't get the actual story, it wasn't that hard, since Mr. Gaiman sure isn't the most demanding writer (that isn't meant as a criticism, it can be a good thing). But why the things that were going on, were going on, completely eluded me. And while I kept on reading and wondering, 'huh? why? What now?', in the end, it all came up to "Why should I care?"

This isn't my kind of book, mainly due to the subject and the characters. That's why I don't think anything Gaiman wrote would be my kind of book. It certainly isn't a book, or an author, you HAVE to read.

I guess this, like that strange car race video game and Star Trek, will be parts of popular culture that will have to live without me.

An incredible adventure!

The American Gods/gods, like the many peoples they accompanied, arrived on this continent over the past hundreds, thousands of years. And like average people, these gods assimilated in ways large and small into their environment, some losing parts of themselves, some holding on to traces of past glory in different ways and forms. As the people assimilated their beliefs often weakened too affecting their old gods.

But change has come. Major change in the form of new beliefs, new gods, large and small, which threaten the old gods existence. And Neil Gaiman has brought us into the center of the fray, old vs new.

In what will be the first of many dream-like experiences, Shadow, central to the story and to my enjoyment, experiences the following:


Shadow was in a dark place, and the thing staring at
him wore a buffalo's head, rank and furry with huge wet
eyes. Its body was a man's body, oiled and slick.
"Changes are coming," said the buffalo without moving
his lips. "There are certain decisions that will have to
be made."
Firelight flickered from wet cave walls.
"Where am I?" Shadow asked.
"In the earth and under the earth," said the buffalo
man. "You are where the forgotten wait." His eyes were
liquid black marbles, and his voice was a rumble from
beneath the world. He smelled like wet cow. "Believe,"
said the rumbling voice. "If you are to survive, you
must believe."
"Believe what?" asked Shadow. "What should I believe?"
He stared at Shadow, the buffalo man, and he drew
himself up huge, and his eyes filled with fire. He
opened his spit-flecked buffalo mouth and it was red
inside with the flames that burned inside him, under
the earth.
"Everything," roared the buffalo man.
(loc 450)


The writing is so wonderful...Gaiman so obviously loves his task. Here Shadow is learning more about the world of the gods.


the voice spoke once more, as if it were addressing
a class, saying, "These are the gods who have passed out
of memory. Even their names are lost. The people who
worshiped them are as forgotten as their gods. Their totems
are long since broken and cast down. Their last priests
died without passing on their secrets.
"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."
(loc 1176)


Then there are short sentences that stopped me: "Chicago happened slowly like a migraine." (1417)

And the essence of it:


"When the people came to America they brought us with
them. They brought me and Loki and Thor, Anansi and the
Lion-God, Leprechauns and Cluracans and Banshees, Kubera
and Frau Holle and Ashtaroth, and they brought you. We
rode here in their minds, and we took root. We traveled
with the settlers to the new lands across the ocean.
"The land is vast. Soon enough, our people abandoned
us, remembered us only as creatures of the old land, as
things that had not come with them to the new. Our true
believers passed on, or stopped believing, and we were
left, lost and scared and dispossessed, to get by on what
little smidgens of worship or belief we could find...
(loc 2489)


There is so much here for an interested reader, much more than I can possibly tell. If you have an interest in myths, fables, old religions and new story telling, this book may well be for you. I know it is not for everyone but those who love it, do love it. It did win me from a position of like to admire to love by the end. Thank you Mr Gaiman.