American Gods
As seen:
By Neil Gaiman
avg rating
1 review
A special illustrated edition of American Gods by bestselling storytelling legend, Neil Gaiman. A dark and gripping epic that will thrill Games of Thrones devotees and Terry Pratchett fans alike. Illustrations by celebrated artist Daniel Egnéus.
‘Original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive’ – George R. R. Martin.
If you are to survive, you must believe.Shadow Moon has served his time. But hours before his release from prison, his beloved wife is killed in a freak accident. Dazed, he boards a plane home where he meets the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who professes both to know Shadow and to be king of America.
Together they embark on a profoundly strange road trip across the USA, encountering a kaleidoscopic cast of characters along the way. Yet all around them a storm threatens to break.
The war has already begun, an epic struggle for the very soul of America, and Shadow is standing squarely in its path.
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Due to previous engagements this was not a very well attended book club meeting. Of the people attending no-one had actually finished the book, although one person was only a few pages away from the end. Everyone said that they wanted to finish the book because they wanted to discover the answers to some of the questions they had about the book. The reason why most of the book club members did not finish the book may be because it is very much out of most of their comfort zone with regards genre, it was also a very long novel.
We felt it was interesting how the various gods in the book are made to be humans, we wondered whether Shadow is also a god but is unaware of this. We were hoping this would be explained later on in the book, as much as anything is really explained in the book!
The book appeared very confusing to us, we weren't sure about the amount of time everything took, we also weren't sure of some of the motivations of the characters. For example, why did Shadow have an obsession with Laura? We also found that the sheer number of different characters and their godly alter-egos was confusing, trying to keep a track of who was who was tricky. There were also a lot of random bits within the book where we left the main story and watched some other characters, often in a different time and place to the main story. Some book club members found this to be distracting although others felt that it added an extra dimension to the story.
We went on to discuss the difference between a belief and a religion, when does one become the other, or are they very different things. We also spoke about the reasons behind the book, possible morality issues such as modern technology making us as humans become more isolated from our surroundings. We seem to be creating our own online communities rather than looking to those people who live in the same street or town as ourselves. Is this a good or a bad thing?
Only one person had ever read a Neil Gaiman book before, and they mentioned that this book is very different to the others they have read.
Overall we gave this book 6 out of 10.
