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American Gods

by Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author)

4.06 · rating details · 82,901 ratings · 6,634 reviews

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. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sand...moreAmerican 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. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.

Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton

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Paperback, 592 pages

Published September 2nd 2003 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 2001)

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Oct 28, 2008

David rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, faves, book-to-re-read, classics

Anybody who tells you that the book is about old and new gods, or about a man named Shadow, or about coin tricks, or about having one's head smashed in for losing a game of checkers, is selling you a line, because those are just details, not the story itself.

Much like any Neil Gaiman story, the devil is in the details, and you just have to resolve yourself to coming along for the ride or you'll miss it. It's not one story, or two, it's many, and it's all complete...and you have to ju...more

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Mar 05, 2011

Stacey rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, all-time-favorites, myths-and-legends, on-my-shelves-hardcovers

In 2003, I walked away from my childhood religion – a high control (some would say abusive) group with a tiny little worldview and a severe superiority complex.

This was my reality:

I believed with all my being that the things depicted above were real, and were just over the event horizon.

Leaving meant losing almost every friend I had ever made since childhood, it created a rift with my still devout f...more

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Nov 30, 2007

Natalie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, fantasy, fiction, kindle

First Neil Gaiman book I ever read, and it might be the last. The idea behind this book seemed so cool, but it didn't really play out in a way that engaged me.

In fact, I had three big problems with this book. (I'm vague at times to avoid spoilers.)

First, his characters are so emotionally detached that I can't care about them. I've read stories where emotional detachment is done well, in a way where you feel pain or pity or something for the character, but this was just.....moreFirst Neil Gaiman book I ever read, and it might be the last. The idea behind this book seemed so cool, but it didn't really play out in a way that engaged me.

In fact, I had three big problems with this book. (I'm vague at times to avoid spoilers.)

First, his characters are so emotionally detached that I can't care about them. I've read stories where emotional detachment is done well, in a way where you feel pain or pity or something for the character, but this was just... hollow. I felt nothing in a bored way, instead of a profound way.

Second, the ending of the book felt like a cop out -- the story already felt aimless, and the one thing you think was going somewhere doesn't at all. I think it could have worked if it had been foreshadowed a little better, maybe? But even then, again, how do you care about what happened, given what happened? Similarly, the whole book has a disjointed, anticlimactic feel to it.

Third, I'm not sure what point the book is trying to make; the only points that jump out at me seem obviously flawed. And this is particularly bothersome, since he seems to definitely have *a* point.

For example, if he's trying to say that Americans care more about emerging technologies than religion, it's irrelevant to drive that point home by saying, "You know, no one worships Horus and Bast and the Norse pantheon anymore." No shit? Americans, and much of the rest of the world today, aren't polytheistic? Wow! That doesn't mean they aren't religious. I mean damn, if you have to skirt around the world's three major religions for your point to make sense, then maybe you don't have a point at all. Furthermore, it's simply not true that Americans are not religious; the United States is (perhaps unfortunately) one of the most religious first world countries.

Then at another junction in the book it seems that he's saying religion AND emerging technologies are all subject to being replaced by something else, which makes sense at least for the technology because it becomes outdated. So it's like he's saying Americans are fickle about what they "worship" and quickly pass it up for the next new thing. But yet again, what of the fact that Judaism and Christianity have been around for over two thousand years, and Islam for over a thousand? Again, it's no wonder why they're barely mentioned in the book; if it's fickle to still believe in a thousand year old religion just because we don't believe in even OLDER polytheistic religions, then shit, call us fickle then. How far back does a religion need to go to please this guy?

At yet another junction it seems like he's saying that both the old gods (polytheistic deities) and the new gods (technology) are things that just deceive people in some vague way, but he never really goes very far with this idea. At the end of the book I thought this must have been the point -- by process of elimination, no less -- but what kind of point is that? Both spirituality and materialism are deceptive, so what's the alternative? Are we supposed to be boring and hollow inside like the main character?

So really, at the end it just feels like a pretentious failure of an allegory where I didn't feel anything for any of the characters and the exciting thing that was supposed to happen didn't. Worse yet, it's a self-important book with no real point. Terribly disappointing.

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Jan 21, 2008

Kelly rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-and-scifi, fiction, 20th-century-postwar-to-late

I am giving this book four stars due to two simple facts: the insightful choice of concept and the brilliant way in which the concept was articulated and executed through Gaiman's writing.

I'll start with the idea: I will not claim that the ultimate idea behind this book is particularly novel: the battle of the old ways and the new for the souls of the future, the mixed blessing that is "progress", what we leave behind, and what we learn. These are staples of the fantasy ge...moreI am giving this book four stars due to two simple facts: the insightful choice of concept and the brilliant way in which the concept was articulated and executed through Gaiman's writing.

I'll start with the idea: I will not claim that the ultimate idea behind this book is particularly novel: the battle of the old ways and the new for the souls of the future, the mixed blessing that is "progress", what we leave behind, and what we learn. These are staples of the fantasy genre. However, his twist on the concept made it genius from a storytelling perspective. It is a specifically American story, where the old gods (Odin, Baron Samedi, the Morrigan warrior goddesses... etc, etc.. gods in a traditional sense) battle with the new gods (the internet, computers, the media, Mr. Town, Mr. World) for what little belief is left in a society that, as it is pointed out again and again, "has no time for gods." What happens to gods who have lost their worshippers? Even to gods whose original purpose is not understood anymore (such as the fascinating case of Easter)? What happens to discarded ideas, with just scraps of belief to hang on to? Not only are these fascinating questions to ask, but especially fascinating ones to ask of a 21st century America. Interesting that it took a British guy to really see the big picture here.

Secondly, the execution is quite skillfully done. His characterizations of the old gods exactly fit what you would expect them to be, in societies where gods acted human, made mistakes, got into fights, and were just as questionable in their morals.

He sometimes takes breaks from the story to illustrate his points more fully, and as they are thoughts worth considering, and writing worth reading, I'd like to reproduce a few of them here:

"None of this can actually be happening. If it makes you more comfortable, you could simply think of it as metaphor. 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.

Religions are a place to stand and look and act, vantage points from which to view the world."

""There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like that it seems so simple.

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived and then by some means or other, died. there. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'll mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection) but still unique.

Without individuals we see only numbers, a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, "casualties may rise to a million." With inidividual stories, the statistics become people- but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themsleves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child's swollen, swollen belly and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, this skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted distended cariacture of a human child?...

We draw our lines around these moments of pain, remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.

Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book and resume our lives.

A life that is, like any other, unlike any other.

And the simple truth is this: There was a girl, and her uncle sold her."

... moments like that really got to me. I think especially that last quote takes on the tone of an invocation, which is so highly appropriate to this subject matter and the mood he is trying to evoke. Mood by the way, is one of his very strong points. He had me by about 20 pages in or so. Realistic but mysterious. Exactly as it should be.

I don't want to give away the ending, because I encourage everyone to read this book, but lets just say one of the things I appreciate the most about this book is that he doesn't simplify either. It would be so easy to make this a black and white issue, and there are several shades of grey that wind through the characters, events, and especially the more than slight twist of a conclusion.

I really do recommend this quite highly. A big thank you to everyone who encouraged me to read it.

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Jan 24, 2012

Meg ♥ rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: e-books, 2012-reads

This is a tough review for me to write. I'm not exactly sure what it is about this book that I don't like. I'm not sure there even IS something I don't like. Since I don't want to just leave you all with the ever popular "I'm just not that into it", I will try to explain.

This book has all the elements of a book I would enjoy. The creepiness factor is up there, the writing is brilliant, the main character is a big lug I couldn't help but love. Also, I have always been fascin...moreThis is a tough review for me to write. I'm not exactly sure what it is about this book that I don't like. I'm not sure there even IS something I don't like. Since I don't want to just leave you all with the ever popular "I'm just not that into it", I will try to explain.

This book has all the elements of a book I would enjoy. The creepiness factor is up there, the writing is brilliant, the main character is a big lug I couldn't help but love. Also, I have always been fascinated by mythology, so that's a plus.

Shadow is our main character and he just got out of jail after doing his time of three years. Right before he is supposed to be released he is let out early, because his wife was killed, in apparently scandalous circumstances. The first 50ish pages were about the extent of where the book was interesting to me. Shadow meets Wednesday, and then the story turns into a bunch of mini stories and flashbacks, and I didn't enjoy most of them. Some were okay, but the majority just felt like annoying disruptions, and I felt myself thinking this is yet another longer book that could benefit from losing about 100 or so pages from the dragging middle. Shadow is paid by Wednesday to be an errand boy while he travels America trying to rally his troops in preparation for a war between The old Gods, and the new Gods (media and money) I guess it's my own fault. I couldn't really bring myself to care about this war between the new and old Gods, because the Gods of Media and Money? Not my Gods...

Books that are hyped up as much as this one leave me in a place where I tend to get disappointed, because it's so hard to live up to those expectations. Of course that's not the books fault, but I was just expecting to like this book much more than I did. I never felt engaged while reading this book, and that's the reason I couldn't rate this above three stars. I could appreciate the great writing and originality, however, so I couldn't give it below three stars.

Three stars it is folks, but as most of you know this book is loved by (almost) all, so of course I encourage everyone who is interested in this book already to read it, and form your own opinions. This book didn't do it for me, but I am definitely going to try some of Gaiman's other books and see if I have a better experience.
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Jul 07, 2011

Stephen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, fantasy, mythstories-and-legends, 2000-2005, favorite-ideas, all-time-favorites, 6-star-books

My literary promiscuity being what it is, I have read and loved a lot of novels in many different genres. However, among the beau coup books that I have loved long time there are a select few that hold a special, hallowed place in my pantheon of favorites…American Gods is one of these elite.

Gaiman’s writing is both subdued and poetic. It is deeply emotional, but without a hint of melodrama. His descriptions are elaborate yet not drawn out. He tells a huge, complex, etern...more

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Nov 22, 2008

Oceana2602 rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, fantasy, male-writers, english

"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 arou...more

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Nov 15, 2011

Gayla rated it

· review of another edition

This book is great. At times its a little confusing what is going on in this story, but that just adds to the quality of it because the moment you figure out what is going on is like a great slap-in-the-face moment of understanding, like OHHHHHHHHHH, I ... GET IT! This book has some funny parts and it has some interesting concepts that makes you want to take a moment to ponder them, and I just really liked it.

Here is my FAVORITE excerpt from the book, a little long, but SOOO worth ...moreThis book is great. At times its a little confusing what is going on in this story, but that just adds to the quality of it because the moment you figure out what is going on is like a great slap-in-the-face moment of understanding, like OHHHHHHHHHH, I ... GET IT! This book has some funny parts and it has some interesting concepts that makes you want to take a moment to ponder them, and I just really liked it.

Here is my FAVORITE excerpt from the book, a little long, but SOOO worth reading. This excerpt I had found written somewhere prior to reading the book and was what brought me to seek out this book in the first place.

I can believe that things are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkly lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in American is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternate. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste, I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman, I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no-one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.(less)

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Oct 23, 2007

Dan rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: americans, gods, and everyone inbetween

This book (in a very round about way) taught me what good literature is. My mother was telling me about this book, and commented that it is good literature. Now, I was surprised to hear this because Neil Gaiman is usually a nonstop sex and violence party of disaffected goth teenager fantasy. Furthermore, I didn't really believe in good literature. I had had so much obvious bull-plop literary analysis crammed down my throat in high school (A high school teacher once said to our class "In...more

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May 30, 2009

Amanda rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, scifi-fantasy, thriller-adventure

As my husband says, my love affair with Neil Gaiman is over.

I really did think that Neil Gaiman might be a modern writer I could love. I read Coraline, and thought he had potential. Coraline was not quite right, but it was written for the 10-and-under age group, so I thought maybe it was just my adult sensibilities kicking in, despite me loving young adult and children’s lit. But no. I picked up American Gods from the library last week. About halfway through, my dad came over, and I fo...moreAs my husband says, my love affair with Neil Gaiman is over.

I really did think that Neil Gaiman might be a modern writer I could love. I read Coraline, and thought he had potential. Coraline was not quite right, but it was written for the 10-and-under age group, so I thought maybe it was just my adult sensibilities kicking in, despite me loving young adult and children’s lit. But no. I picked up American Gods from the library last week. About halfway through, my dad came over, and I found out he’s reading the book, too, and was about as far along as I was. I asked him his opinion. “It’s utter trash.” Now, I don’t feel quite so strongly about it, but I’ve got to admit, this wasn’t a great book.

That’s not to say it wasn’t well written. As far as writing goes, Gaiman does a decent job. He’s thorough, well-researched, and obviously knows his settings (for instance, I loved reading all about Wisconsin and the House on the Rock and Culvers and all those places that I recognize from the years I lived in WI). But unfortunately, good writing and research can only get you so far. You have to have an interesting story, and “interesting” is one thing this book is not.

An unobtrusive man named Shadow gets out of jail to find out his wife is dead. He’s offered a job by a mysterious man named Wednesday, who turns out to be a living god. Shadow then gets roped into a series of events in a war between new gods (think “internet” and “media”) and old gods, which leads to an anticlimactic ending. Along the way, there are interludes about various gods and how they came to America. The book is steeped in mythology, and very light on actual people. There was no one to care about. I didn’t care if these characters lived or died. I didn’t even bother to try to remember who was who, who said what, etc. When a couple big reveals/plot twists happened near the end, I could see how they were supposed to be powerful, but they fell completely flat, because I simply didn’t care. Periodically, the book would focus on real people instead of gods, for brief time periods, and those were the only people I cared about. Unfortunately, that took probably less than 50 pages total out of 461.

I was bored to tears the entire time reading this book. I wanted to think it was going to get better. It had an interesting premise. But it just dragged on me. By the end, I couldn’t wait to finish. Perhaps if it had been less steeped in mythology (I feel like I just shoved several semesters worth of world religion into a week of reading, with no background on any of the gods I heard about along the way), or if I had known more about mythology to begin with, I would have liked this better. Or, perhaps, if he hadn’t put in all the interludes that really drove me crazy. I hate breaking up the flow of a book to add short stories that have nothing to do with anything, and never come back into the picture. Those interludes made me want to scream. Either way, I’m finished with Neil Gaiman. I wouldn’t want to struggle through another of his adult books. I’ve heard his YA novel Stardust is pretty good, and I’ve seen the movie, so maybe next year I’ll attempt that one, but for now, I’ve had more than enough fill of his work.

Oddly, when the book started, I thought he wrote a lot like Stephen King. The writing style seemed similar, though with different subject matter. By the end, though, the difference became clear – King knows how to separate out all that isn’t necessarily to a plot, whereas Gaiman doesn’t seem to have figured that out yet. He hasn’t learned to tighten his writing, as the saying goes. There was a lot of unnecessarily fluff in American Gods. It didn’t have great character development. It has a lot of symbolism, but in the end, those thematic elements meant very little, which was disappointing. And lastly, it didn’t have a plot to grab onto you and carry you along. I put this book down at every possible distraction. If you don’t have good character development or thematic styling, you’ve got to at least have a driven plot, and this had none of the three. A disappointment all around.

As a warning: If you are offended by bad language or graphic sexual scenes, this book is not for you. To me, the language and sex in this book felt natural to the plot, so it didn’t bother me (unlike some other books I’ve reviewed this year), but they are both definitely prevalent, so don’t read it if those things bother you.(less)

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Mar 16, 2009

Trevor rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature, religion

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...moreI 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.
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Aug 29, 2007

Wade rated it

· review of another edition

i'm a graduate student in theology, so how can i not love this book?
this book is one of the most creative descriptions of my own understanding of theology. gods do not exist on some eternal plane, but they rise and fall with the cultures and peoples who support and worship them. these gods have avatars in many different places--they are not a single entity but many that are called by the same name. mythologies can be more true than reality. and it's a good warning about how careful we sho...more

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Jun 29, 2007

Seth Hahne rated it

· review of another edition

After having come to appreciate Neil Gaiman's voice as expression in the delectable Anansi Boys and other treats (MirrorMask and select episodes from The Absolute Sandman), I thought I'd give American Gods another shot. Years ago, after it had first been released, I purchased it on the strength of rave reviews. I got about two-fifths through and just lost steam. The book is not exciting. Still, maybe it was worth it, so I began anew a couple months ago and read the thing through over the course ...more

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Nov 28, 2011

Kay rated it

Shelves: all-time-favorites, myths-and-tales, quirky, journey-not-destination, 6-plus-stars, urban-fantasy, life-after-death

This book turned me over completely to Neil Gaiman and made me drooly and ga-ga for his writing like a Twilight fangirl on too much fairy dust. I've read a few of Gaiman's works before (The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, and Stardust), but none have blown me so completely out of the boiling seas like American Gods.

American Gods is one of the quirkiest books on American culture and belief that I've read. Told from the perspective of a particularly i...more

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Oct 06, 2010

Miss Kim rated it

Recommends it for: Fans of fantasy, especially those that smoke weed

Shelves: 2010, fantasy, dnf

This one just was not for me. I think if I still got high that I would have enjoyed it more. I'm reminded of the time I watched Pink Floydd's 'The Wall' while stoned and thought it was awesome, and then saw it again sober, and I thought, 'WTF this makes no sense.'

This started out very good, and then stalled out. A man named Shadow is released from prison after 3 years, only to find his wife has been killed in a car accident while having sex with one of his friends. Ok, I can roll w...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Becky rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, neil-gaiman, 2009, reviewed, mythology, blog_etb, favorites, highly-recommended

This was my first of Gaiman's novels-- not counting Good Omens, which he co-authored with Terry Pratchett-- and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Both books took well-known themes and twisted them into something new and unique, and I really enjoy that. I will definitely be reading more of Gaiman's work.

I really liked the concept of this book. In a very amateur way, I enjoy mythology, mysticism, religions, rituals and belief structures. By "amateur way" I mean that I am interested i...moreThis was my first of Gaiman's novels-- not counting Good Omens, which he co-authored with Terry Pratchett-- and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Both books took well-known themes and twisted them into something new and unique, and I really enjoy that. I will definitely be reading more of Gaiman's work.

I really liked the concept of this book. In a very amateur way, I enjoy mythology, mysticism, religions, rituals and belief structures. By "amateur way" I mean that I am interested in these things, but I'm too lazy to actually "study" it. I like the entertainment that mythology and the like offer, I like the escapism. One passage that I really liked from the book represents this perfectly:

"Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives." (pg. 323)

Anyway... This is one of those rare treats of a book that never fully give up their secrets on the first reading. As I was going through, I marked some passages that made me sit back, reread and just absorb them. One, which I found almost heartbreakingly sad and cruel, is:

"A whole life in darkness, surrounded by filth, that was what Shadow dreamed, his first night in Lakeside. A child's life, long ago and far away, in a land across the ocean, in the lands where the sun rose. But this life contained no sun-rises, only dimness by day and blindness by night.

Nobody spoke to him. He heard human voices, from outside, but could understand human speech no better than he understood the howling of the owls or the yelps of dogs.

He remembered, or thought he remembered, one night, half a lifetime ago, when one of the big people had entered, quietly, and had not cuffed him or fed him, but had picked him up to her breast and embraced him. She smelled good. Hot drops of water had fallen from her face to his. He had been scared, and wailed loudly in his fear.

She put him down on the straw, hurriedly, and left the hut, fastening the door behind her.

He remembered that moment, and he treasured it, just as he remembered the sweetness of a cabbage heart, the tart taste of plums, the crunch of apples, the greasy delight of roasted fish.

And now he saw the faces in the firelight, all of them looking at him as he was led out from the hut for the first time, which was the last time. So that was what people looked like. Raised in darkness, he had never seen faces. Everything was so new. So strange. The bonfire light hurt his eyes. They pulled on the rope around his neck, to lead him to the place where the man waited for him.

And when the first blade was raised in the firelight, what a cheer went up from the crowd. The child from the darkness began to laugh with them, in delight and in freedom.

And then the blade came down."

After finishing the book, I came back to this passage and found it even more interesting after learning the implications. I feel like when I revisit this book there will be a TON of missed references sprinkled throughout the book. I look forward to it. (less)

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Jul 07, 2011

Anastasia rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: contemporanei

Lo sapevate che fino a 50-60 pagine prima della fine (e sono 523 in tutto) pensavo già con rassegnazione di dare due stelle? Beh, se adesso sono quattro c'è un motivo. Mi ero presa un colpo, cavolo. Io, IO dare due stelle al caro Gaiman? Se avete sbirciato un po' fra le mie letture, io non do quasi mai un voto inferiore alle tre stelle. Infatti, fortunatamente non mi capita spesso di imbattermi in letture pessime. Quindi pensare che deve ripetersi questa rarità con uno dei miei scrittori preferi...moreLo sapevate che fino a 50-60 pagine prima della fine (e sono 523 in tutto) pensavo già con rassegnazione di dare due stelle? Beh, se adesso sono quattro c'è un motivo. Mi ero presa un colpo, cavolo. Io, IO dare due stelle al caro Gaiman? Se avete sbirciato un po' fra le mie letture, io non do quasi mai un voto inferiore alle tre stelle. Infatti, fortunatamente non mi capita spesso di imbattermi in letture pessime. Quindi pensare che deve ripetersi questa rarità con uno dei miei scrittori preferiti..ecco..perché deve accadere questo? Naturalmente non sapevo come stavano davvero le cose nella storia. Poi viene rivelato tutto e io resto lì come una cretina, insultandomi per aver solo pensato di dare due stelle a Neil. Brutto scherzo che mi hai giocato, vecchio mio! D:

Sono stupita, davvero. Insomma, per me è stata una di quelle storie dove fino a poco prima della fine ti chiedi che cavolo pensa di fare l'autore, magari pure con rabbia e nervosismo. Per la serie "secondo me non sa dove andare a parare".
Oh, sono proprio una piccola ingenua.
Ero già pronta ad elencare i mille motivi per cui la cosa non mi stava piacendo affatto, e poi..e poi cambia tutto. Non posso dilungarmi troppo su questo punto o rovinerei la lettura a chi intende affrontarla.

Questo, malgrado tutto il durante della mia avventura, in realtà è un buon libro. L'idea è geniale, non si può negare. E' un Gaiman diverso, avviso. Non è il Gaiman di Coraline, o di Stardust, Nessun dove..è molto diverso. Non si riconosce quasi per nulla. Credo di preferirlo nei toni che usa per un pubblico più giovane, ma merita anche questa sua versione. Non gli do cinque stelle principalmente perché non le sento (sì, vado un po' a sensazioni), e per altri motivi più concreti. Il protagonista, Shadow, non è una gran personalità. Anzi, a dire il vero mi è sembrato decisamente vacuo. Forse è anche voluto, vedi il nome e vedi la sua storia. Però non mi ha attirato comunque, pasiensa.

Un consiglio a chi vorrà leggere questo libro: non dovete abbandonare per nessun motivo, andate fino alla fine. Potreste sbagliare nel giudicare, come è successo a me. Magari all'inizio non vi invoglierà a questo proposito, penserete "eh ma che palle". Vi avviso, è lento. Ha un ritmo decisamente lento, però vale la pena di continuare.

PS: Ah, se è il primo libro di Gaiman che leggete vi consiglio un approccio diverso, però. Io voterei per Neverwhere, tanta originalità (che anche qui non manca affatto eh, caspita se c'è una cosa che non ho messo mai in dubbio è la fantasia sconfinata di Gaiman) e si assapora un Gaiman equilibrato. American Gods è meglio come esperimento successivo, quando si conosce già l'autore. :)(less)

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Dec 17, 2011

Lena rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This quietly profound novel starts with a character named Shadow, who is preparing to resume his life after a stint in prison. But the life he planned to return to evaporates shortly before his release.

His questions about what to do next are answered by a craggy old grifter named Mr. Wednesday, who hires Shadow for unspecified assistance. As they travel together across the American landscape, Shadow comes to understand that his employer is an American version of an ancient god, w...more

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Apr 24, 2010

K.D. rated it

Recommended to K.D. by: Filipinos in Goodreads (Book of the Month: April 2010)

Shelves: ya

USA, present time. 32-year old Shadow was released from the prison only to receive the news that his wife, Laura died in a car accident while giving oral sex to Shadow's bestfriend Robbie. Shattered, Shadow accepted the offer to work for Wednesday who was actually an incarnation of Odin the All-Father who was recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology in their quest to fight the New Gods.

Its been a long while since the last time I read a fantasy-themed bo...moreUSA, present time. 32-year old Shadow was released from the prison only to receive the news that his wife, Laura died in a car accident while giving oral sex to Shadow's bestfriend Robbie. Shattered, Shadow accepted the offer to work for Wednesday who was actually an incarnation of Odin the All-Father who was recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology in their quest to fight the New Gods.

Its been a long while since the last time I read a fantasy-themed book. This brought back memories of my younger years in Quezon when I was hooked reading komiks. I grew up reading about Darna, Lastikman, etc. Reading American Gods of course was far from reading those komiks with all the pictures and captions. I struggled adjusting to Mr. Gaiman's writing style so it took me 1 full week to finish this almost 588-page book. However, I have no regrets since it was an enjoyable wonderful read. I think the difficulty came from my being 45 years old and being introduced to a new set of Gods (we have Roman, Greeks and Jesus Christ) is something that now comes a bit too late for me to be engrossed with. I think that when you are in the late half of your life, you just focus on which God can save your soul and ignore all the rest. However, as I reminisced my "komiks days", I set aside my age and just enjoy Mr. Gaiman's opus.

The Gods, particularly the Old Gods, here are not those that have spectacular powers like the characters in Percy Jackson, the mutants in X-Men or the characters in Heroes. The latter two are not called as gods but they are comparable. The reason is that the Gods here do less spectacular and more of strange things like in those movies or TV series. In this book, for example, there is a female god called Bilquis who encases her lover inside her vagina after the sexual act. Wednesday, the All-Father, himself needs to have a lot of sex for him to live. Loki can cause an earthquake and even Shadow, who was later revealed as the son of Wednesday could make snow fall in a summer day. There is a lot of killings, nudity, cursing and sex here that sometimes I feel that they are no longer Gods but more of sophisticated criminals.

For me, the message that I got from this novel is that Gods exist because people worship them. This is true for the Old and New American Gods although I know that atheists and non-believers would argue that it can also apply to Jesus Christ but that is totally a different point that I do not want to argue with.

Interesting and worth all the time. Nice choice made by the Filipinos here in Goodreads as our Book of the Month for April 2010!(less)

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Apr 23, 2008

April rated it

· review of another edition

This is my first Neil Gaiman book. I've been dying to try one of his books since I saw Stardust in the theaters, and to be honest I think I should have started with Stardust itself. American Gods just didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would, and I wavered on giving between three and four stars on this one.

What primarily turned me off a little was the subject, the various gods from various cultures -- not so much the gods themselves, but the entire hodge podge collection of ...moreThis is my first Neil Gaiman book. I've been dying to try one of his books since I saw Stardust in the theaters, and to be honest I think I should have started with Stardust itself. American Gods just didn't appeal to me as much as I thought it would, and I wavered on giving between three and four stars on this one.

What primarily turned me off a little was the subject, the various gods from various cultures -- not so much the gods themselves, but the entire hodge podge collection of them, the combination of rare, small, and obscure gods, and all of them explained very little or not at all. I am versed in and like some Greek mythology, but none of those gods were featured here. We have Norse, Hindu, African, and what have you, but none of those gods really tweaked my interest as I know very little about them and the author didn't really get into them. He made a whole lot of references to the old myths and the old images, as though he expected the reader to already know about them or to go and find out about them. I'm familiar with some of the Irish and Asian references, as well as some of the Native American and older pagan stuff, but they played only a small part in the book.

I kept thinking that the author must like the idea of footnotes in his book one day when he's long gone and his book is taught in a literature class. That, or the book is intended as something like an inside joke, something that only other fellow voracious readers of every imaginable god in all of time and history would truly and perfectly understand.

On another level, I suppose the offhand references to these gods with very little explanation was intended to illustrate just how much of these gods we have forgotten -- except in my case I never knew most of them, so there was nothing to forget in the first place. Rather than intrigue me to want to read more about the original gods, it made me feel either that I was blindly reaching out for anything familiar among all the weird symbolism and obscure references or simply drudging through them, hoping that it didn't really matter.

The whole concept, however, was very intriguing, though I think an old one. I have always imagined what it must be like for all the old country ways and beliefs to be reborn and evolved in this country -- a melting pot of nearly everything from the old world.

However, I did eventually get into the subject. The road story helped to provide me with something on which I could primarily focus, though the whole journey seemed kind of aimless at first. I couldn't relate to Shadow very well because he didn't seem to have much of a will or much of an opinion. He just sort of let himself float like a leaf in the wind, allowing some stranger whose mead he drank make all the decisions. Despite what we find out in the end, I couldn't understand his attachment to Wednesday, which was so strong that he was willing to give up his life for him.

And all the references to a storm about to brew, a war about to be waged, only brought to mind Stephen King's The Last Stand. With that and the gods, it felt just a tad derivative.

BUT ... the book got better towards the end. The true purpose of the journey made itself clear to Shadow, which explained the earlier plot points somewhat. Some of the revelations could have used a little more foreshadowing, though, or perhaps a little bit of flashback to remind the reader of what came before, because when Shadow had his discoveries and epiphanies, I couldn't even fully remember the initial mention of the mysteries.

It was in the trunk, for instance.

I remember the joke or the story being told about the man with the elephant head, or perhaps it was an illustration of a coin trick -- I don't quite remember -- but when Shadow recalls it, only that tiny bit about it being in the trunk is repeated. There's no flashback to remind the reader who said it (was it Mr. Nancy?) and what the context was, and there's no other mention of that bit about the trunk, nothing to make the reader think that perhaps that bit of information might be significant later -- significant enough that when Shadow recalls it, poof! He has a big idea.

Despite my nitpicks, I enjoyed the book, and I could not have predicted the ending, which I liked. I'm still eager to read Gaiman's other books, and I know I will probably like them better. This one was just not to my taste as I had hoped.

Finished reading April 23, 2008.(less)

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Sep 01, 2010

Ryan rated it

· review of another edition

American Gods has a strong premise, but a slow plot.

Many readers will find themselves skipping pages, simply because this story has already been told in a hundred ways. There are a million American movies about confidence men, highways, and modernization. Sadly, Gaimon's presentation of America often feels cliche and overbearing.

The pettiness of the gods as well as the nature of belief have already been better tapped by other fantasy writers, especially Gene Wolfe in his ...more

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Sep 30, 2009

Donna rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2009

I had heard good things about this book before i read it and when I first started it I thought it was going to be just my sort of thing. However i have abandoned it at page 240. I still had no idea what it was about at this point and had no empathy with any of the characters. If someone wants to tell me what happens after this feel free, Maybe i have missed out on something wonderful or maybe Gaiman just isn't my thing.

I wild released this copy (www.bookcrossing.com) of the book o...more

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Dec 29, 2008

Laura rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, adventure, mythology

American Gods is so different, and rambling, that I think it takes a couple of readings to take it all in. Play spot-the-god, enjoy the interludes, be happy to have grown up in Lakeside, CA and not the Lakeside in this book (shudder).
A good story about this one: I pre-ordered it and had it mailed to camp, because it was published in (I think) July. That weekend, my friend Chelsea was staying with me over the break. I had already warned her that I planned to see Neil Gaiman reading and s...more

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Nov 07, 2008

Kathryn rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, religion-myth, prison

There were so many things I loved about this book. I do not remember the last time I was so completely enthralled by a story, from start to finish. One moment, the story made me extremely sad, the next I was excited, the next I was laughing and feeling hopeful. I would prefer to not give anything away, so I'll leave it at that and simply recommend this for anyone who appreciates imagination.

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Dec 21, 2011

Kelanth, in tenebris lux tua rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

L'idea alla base del romanzo è geniale, ma lo sviluppo della storia difetta in molte parti: a volte, eccessivamente, il libro si rivela lento, macchinoso, con trovate un po’ al limite e l’idea che il lettore se ne fa arrivato alla fine è di aver fatto una piccola indigestione. Troppi, davvero a dismisura gli argomenti dati in pasto nella storia.
I giudizi da me letti erano molto positivi e visto anche le premiazioni Hugo e Nebula, è stato un incentivo a cominciarne la lettura, peccato che gi...moreL'idea alla base del romanzo è geniale, ma lo sviluppo della storia difetta in molte parti: a volte, eccessivamente, il libro si rivela lento, macchinoso, con trovate un po’ al limite e l’idea che il lettore se ne fa arrivato alla fine è di aver fatto una piccola indigestione. Troppi, davvero a dismisura gli argomenti dati in pasto nella storia.
I giudizi da me letti erano molto positivi e visto anche le premiazioni Hugo e Nebula, è stato un incentivo a cominciarne la lettura, peccato che giunto all’ultima pagina, se dovessi mettere su una bilancia (come nel libro) l’anima di questa storia, dovrei dare tutto in pasto al Dio egizio dei morti. Troppe le parti noiose e inconcludenti.
Il personaggio principale è un po’ troppo stereotipato e risalta troppo il background dell’autore che pesca a piene mani dai fumetti, in contrapposizione i personaggi comprimari sono troppi e rendono il percorso narrativo troppo pesante, soprattutto nelle digressioni continue ai riti degli Dei nei tempi antichi per lo più mal raccontati, che non alleggeriscono certamente l’intreccio narrativo e potevano essere saltati del tutto senza per questo pregiudicarne la comprensione.
Ripeto l’idea di fondo è originale: uno scontro tra miti e dei del passato contro i miti moderni; quest’ultimi secondo me rispetto ai primi solo abbozzati e non ben definiti all’interno della storia. Gli dei del passato, in un pot-pourri di divinità d'ogni tempo e d'ogni mitologia, vivono semidimenticati nel mondo d'oggi, sbarcando il lunario come poveri reietti della società. Arriverà una guerra finale tra le due contrapposizioni e il personaggio principale farà da ago della bilancia.
Ma tutto ciò a mio avviso non basta a rendere la lettura piacevole, troppo spesso si scivola in un turbinio di caos, mischiando troppi generi: comedy, fantasy, mitologia, horror, noir, che invece di divertire, confondono e alla lunga stancano.
Due stelle per l’idea e nulla più.

http://kelanthsblog.blogspot.com/(less)

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Oct 29, 2011

Lissa rated it

· review of another edition

I can't bring myself to say that I liked this book.

I've decided to shelve it and maybe wait a few years to see if I actually do care enough to find out what happens next (like China Melveille's Perdido Street Station, which I shelved a mere 20 pages or so from the ending).

Gaiman surely is a talented writer. I'm not criticising him. I admire and respect his imagination and his brain, and his writing is easy to read.

What I don't like about American Gods is the ...moreI can't bring myself to say that I liked this book.

I've decided to shelve it and maybe wait a few years to see if I actually do care enough to find out what happens next (like China Melveille's Perdido Street Station, which I shelved a mere 20 pages or so from the ending).

Gaiman surely is a talented writer. I'm not criticising him. I admire and respect his imagination and his brain, and his writing is easy to read.

What I don't like about American Gods is the emotional detachment of the main characters, and that no matter how hard I try, I simply can't care about any of the characters, or their mission, or the 'impending storm' we're occasionally reminded about.

I also find an alarming lack of detail in some scenes (so many that I can't even pull and example - it's completely scattered), and some overwhelmingly detailed descriptions of things I really don't care about (such as Shadow's coin tricks - a coin trick is a visual medium, and having to read about them I more often than not skipped over them completely. I haven't yet found a reason for them being part of the plot).

It's an interesting premise, but I simply can't connect to a character that I only figured out wasn't white 200 pages in. There is a lot of text (600+ pages) but not enough description to make me care. Shadow doesn't ask questions, and sure I can figure out what's going on, but I've still got a whole bunch of questions such as WHY is this mission so damned important, anyway? And Shadow's not an inspiring character: he drifts around and does exactly as he's told, developing an unnaturally strong loyal attachment to a man that doesn't seem to care about him.

It's taken me two months to finally give up on this book.

However, I did enjoy all the little short stories between the actual chapters of the book. Gaiman clearly loves this book and did a lot of research for it, which I appreciate. But I haven't done the same research, and it's too mysterious exactly who the characters are all the time. I'm reading to be entertained and educated, and I don't want to go off and educate myself on the minor and uninteresting characters we come across.

I also want to mention the language - I didn't have a problem with the expletives, because I feel it fits seamlessly into the novel.

BTW I read Stardust, and absolutely loved it. So it's not Gaiman himself: more the subject.(less)

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Nov 09, 2009

Sofia rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: thriller-and-horror, fantasy, favorites

Before I begin, I should say this is one of those books which have made such a deep impact on me that I find it difficult to talk about them. you have been warned.

If I had to choose one word to describe this book, it would be "epic". It manages to explore so many themes that, at times, it gets a bit overwhelming. It mixes religion, love, faith, society, technology, friendship, and it does it in such a seamless and clever way that is truly impressive. It is a novel about old g...more

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Dec 18, 2010

Ben Babcock rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, own, favourites, urban-fantasy, mythology-remix, 2010-read, 2010-best10, hugo-winner, nebula-winner

Second Review (Finished December 10, 2010.)

Oh, let me count and enumerate the many and various ways I love Neil Gaiman and, in particular, American Gods. I love it because I am insecure and, at times, unsure of my love for it. I love it because it isn't perfect, yet it's still wonderful. I love it because it promises gods and gives us people, and somewhere along the way, somehow, Gaiman manages to make me cry about the death of a goddess who eats people with her vagina.

Ame...more

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Jul 14, 2008

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: If you are interested in mythology, and like fantasy

Recommended to Jackie "the Librarian" by: Randomanthony, I think

Shelves: fantasy, adultfiction

This is a work of dark, urban fantasy with roots going back to the dawn of man. The old gods who came to America with immigrants from cultures worldwide have faded with their believers. Now, they are in a battle for existence with the new deities of technology, transportation, and telecommunication. Can Odin rally the old gods to battle? Or is it too late?

* I really like all the background mythology flashbacks, with the different cultures and gods. And I was verrrry curious as to who...more

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Mar 19, 2008

whatthedeuce rated it

· review of another edition

This is yet another book that has me feeling a bit ambiguous now that I'm finished with it because I didn't exactly enjoy it as much as I'd expected, but there were definitely aspects of it that I liked and that made the novel worthwhile. For one thing, it took me over 150 pages before I got anywhere near oriented about the events taking place and thus could start becoming interested in what was happening. I was seriously so confused at the start when Shadow met Wednesday on the plane, but I bel...moreThis is yet another book that has me feeling a bit ambiguous now that I'm finished with it because I didn't exactly enjoy it as much as I'd expected, but there were definitely aspects of it that I liked and that made the novel worthwhile. For one thing, it took me over 150 pages before I got anywhere near oriented about the events taking place and thus could start becoming interested in what was happening. I was seriously so confused at the start when Shadow met Wednesday on the plane, but I believe it may very well have been Gaiman's intention for the reader to be as bewildered as Shadow himself initially is after he discovers his wife has died and that he's about to leave prison a tad earlier than expected. I can appreciate that because I think it's never a bad thing if a writer can evoke the same feelings and/or responses in the reader that his/her characters are enduring. That mirror effect is intriguing and not easy to produce, I'm sure. Anyway, once I grew familiar with the characters and grasped what was happening to Shadow, I found myself caring about the tribulations the character endured and became immersed in what was agonies and trials he'd face next. I also enjoyed the premise of old and new gods facing off against each other, the old gods being figures from immigrant folklore, and the new ones being incarnations of modern technology, such as television and the Internet. The book compelled me to examine what it is that we Americans hold dear nowadays, and I have to say that I felt guilty for being so attached to things like clothes and the myriad TV shows I watch. I can well imagine how an old god might harbor resentment towards those that have forsaken their ethnic and/or religious roots in place for glitzy false idols, but I also know how difficult it would be to shake off the new gods that surround us today. I certainly wasn't expecting Gaiman to raise questions about what and how people worship, but he did exactly that, and he achieved that in a startlingly grim, but compelling, manner. I thought I'd walk away from the novel feeling gloomy and dejected, but it left me hopeful, really. Hopeful for what, I'm not entirely sure, but I think there may be a future reading more Neil Gaiman stories waiting for me! When all's said and done, I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a more slowly-paced and thought-provoking read.(less)

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Recommend to a teen?	17	147	23 hours, 3 min ago
Heathens, Pagans ...: Group Read: Dec 11/Jan 12 - American Gods	12	33	Jan 20, 2012 06:15pm
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Quotes from American Gods

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” — 3,251 people liked it

“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.” — 1,375 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/983100.American_Gods?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328074340m/983100.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/983100.American_Gods?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]American Gods by Neil Gaiman[/url]

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