American Gods is a classic adult fiction novel by Neil Gaiman.
Only a few days before his release from a three year prison sentence, Shadow learns that his wife and best friend were killed in a car crash and suddenly he doesn’t really have anything to go home to. As he makes his way home regardless, Shadow meets an older gentleman named, Mr. Wednesday, who claims to be a former god.
With nothing else to lose and unable to explain the strange things happening around him, Shadow decides to join the old man on a journey across the country. Together the two, embark on a journey cross America to recruit people like Wednesday for the coming conflict.
Who are these American Gods and what role will Shadow have to play before the end?
American Gods was chosen by my bookclub as our next read and it’s one I’ve been interested in, so I was happy to pick it up. I actually had to place a hold on it and got the audio book first. And the version I got was the author’s preferred version, which is 12,000 words longer. So hours of happy listening for me!
When I first started this book, I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Honestly, I’m not sure I knew what was going on at times throughout the book, but it didn’t really bother me as much as it normally would.
I liked Shadow and his, go with the flow, attitude. He has maybe a moment of doubt and then just sort of accepts the weird and unexplainable and this was actually kind of refreshing in a character.
Once I understood what was happening, I also enjoyed this battle between the new and old gods. I’m sure we’ll have much to discuss in my book club about the technical gods and the classic ones.
There were parts that I thought were drawn out longer than they needed to be, but that could just be because I was reading the preferred version. It was also maybe a smidgen crass, although that might not be the word I am looking for. Let’s just say, I wasn’t comfortable listening to it out loud if little ones were around.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I’m not really sure what to rate it, so I am going to go with 3.5-4 stars for now, but this might change after a good round of discussion.
That’s all for now!
-M-