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Anansi Boys

Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author)

4.02 · Rating details · 180,512 ratings · 9,462 reviews

God is dead. Meet the kids.

Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother.

Now brother Spider's on his doorstep -- about to make Fat Charlie's life more interesting... and a lot more dangerous.

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Mass Market Paperback, 387 pages

Published September 26th 2006 by HarperCollins HarperTorch (first published September 20th 2005)

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Average rating 4.02 ·

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· 180,512 ratings · 9,462 reviews

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Aug 01, 2013 Jayson rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: author-british, 300-399-pp, genre-comedy, read-in-2009, genre-folklore-myth, genre-adult-fantasy

(B+) 76% | Good
Notes: Little transition between its real-world first half and its magical second half. Its story gets all wishy-washy at the end.

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Jun 28, 2007 Seth T. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I laughed out loud. While reading. In a Japanese rice bowl joint. Okay, so maybe it was more of a chortle, but it was definitely out loud. And more than just the once. Patrons quietly minding their own business while slogging through their Number Three Specials With Extra Tokyo Beef would be startled into wakefulness to see me - chopsticks in one hand, book in the other - as my grizzled maw broke forth with guffaws and irrepressible smiles.

Really, Anansi Boys may be the first thing I've read I laughed out loud. While reading. In a Japanese rice bowl joint. Okay, so maybe it was more of a chortle, but it was definitely out loud. And more than just the once. Patrons quietly minding their own business while slogging through their Number Three Specials With Extra Tokyo Beef would be startled into wakefulness to see me - chopsticks in one hand, book in the other - as my grizzled maw broke forth with guffaws and irrepressible smiles.

Really, Anansi Boys may be the first thing I've read from Neil Gaiman that I liked. I never got into Sandman (though I'm told I should have persevered). I never finished American Gods (though I'm told I should have persevered). I never finished 1602 (despite guessing that I should have persevered).

Still, not only did I like it but I loved it. Enough that I gave my copy to someone else to read and purchased a second copy for another friend. And I'm certain they'll want to do similar things with the book.

Anansi Boys is at all times funny, adventurous, and charming. And several other over-used adjectives. In fact, Anansi Boys may be the prototype from which overused adjectives should have come - before they were overused. I'm not sure that Anansi Boys is great literature and I'm not sure that it isn't. What I am certain of beyond any shadow of doubtfulness is that Anansi Boys may be the most fun I have ever had reading a novel.

There may be others that I enjoyed more but my experience of this book was such that it pushed (if even momentarily) all other books from my mind. Someone on the back suggests that the book will make you love and be grateful for spiders. Critics and the things they say, huh? Well, I don't love spiders, but dang was this book good.

The end.

p.s. Anyone thinking of reading Blue like Jazz or Against Christianity or something by Karl Barth should definitely read this first. 'Cuz I mean what if you died after finishing the next book on your queue? It would be an all time tragedy to have wasted hours reading Donald Miller when there is something like Anansi Boys out there. Plus, it's just as spiritual. ...more

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Jul 01, 2008 Qiana Whitted rated it really liked it

Shelves: sf-fantasy, metafiction

I agree with many of the reviewers who praise this fun and inventive novel, but I am especially fascinated by how Gaiman represents race in Anansi Boys. He chooses not to explicitly identify that his globe-trotting main characters are black until at least p. 32 (if I'm mistaken, somebody please let me know) and only then as a point-of-fact that is secondary to their status as gods. It is true that anyone who has read American Gods or heard traditional African folktales will have met Anansi ...more

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May 30, 2012 Lyn rated it really liked it

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman blends the best attributes of Gaiman’s extraordinary talent: excellent writing, original storytelling, mythic elements, and confidence.

A central theme in the narrative is about confidence and that is also how Gaiman tells the tale, his writing exudes confidence, he writes with a virtuoso’s swagger. Not really taking off where American Gods left off, but neither does it depart from Gaiman’s myth and legends foundations, Anansi Boys sings the song of Fat Charlie, Mr. ...more

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Jun 29, 2009 Patrick rated it really liked it

One of the few Gaiman books that I only gush mildly about, as opposed to gushing enthusiastically.

It's a solid book, and it does all the things that makes Gaiman's books great. It's got humor, myth, gravitas, cleverness.... But it simply didn't impress me as much as Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, or Coriline.

I'm willing to admit that the only reason I don't rank this book as 5 stars is because I'm comparing it to his other books, which are profound and perfect. That's probably unfair of ...more

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May 09, 2008 J.G. Keely rated it really liked it

Shelves: contemporary-fantasy, novel, reviewed, humor, uk-and-ireland, fantasy

I've come to recognize that one of the main reasons I enjoyed this book so much was that I listened to the audiobook, performed by comedian Lenny Henry, whose background as a Brit of Caribbean descent made him the perfect choice to bring the characters to life. A lot of audiobooks aren't very good, but this one way great, and really brings out the fact that Anansi stories are meant to be heard.

It's recognizable Gaiman stuff, with the fish-out-of-water narrator in a modern fantasy world, with the I've come to recognize that one of the main reasons I enjoyed this book so much was that I listened to the audiobook, performed by comedian Lenny Henry, whose background as a Brit of Caribbean descent made him the perfect choice to bring the characters to life. A lot of audiobooks aren't very good, but this one way great, and really brings out the fact that Anansi stories are meant to be heard.

It's recognizable Gaiman stuff, with the fish-out-of-water narrator in a modern fantasy world, with the author sxploring the history and the form of the mythic story, but there's a level of deprecating humor in this book that is lacking in other works by Gaiman.

One can catch snips of wit in any of his books. Any good book must include some humor: an author might as futilely try to excise pain or desire from life as humor. Gaiman has never placed any such artificial limits on his work; indeed, the only limits on his books are those he, himself cannot overcome.

Previously, his humor was only an occasional element, but there was apparently something in the writing of this particular book which finally allowed him to unleash his sense of the comic as a whole entity. The text swims and bobs with the ridiculous, the unfortunate, and the clever.

After reading 'Good Omens', written by Gaiman and Prachett, I was told that without Prachett, it would have retained none of the humor. I now begin to wonder whether if Pratchett added anything at all. Indeed, this work of Gaiman's overshadows that earlier work in both degrees and shades of the insightful and entertaining.

With the focus on Anansi and stories, the book provides an amusing analysis of storytelling itself, so that anyone who studies the nature and classification of tales will find certain asides and references particularly amusing. It is rare these days that an author will write a piece of fiction which explores on a subtextual level a concept or idea fundamental to the work itself. I have come to wish that more authors could gain the audacity that Gaiman found here.

There is a degree to which this story matches Gaiman's usual monomythic progression from naive outsider to coy insider, which at the outset was my greatest difficulty with the work. The inevitability and redundancy of this trope makes me wish for Gaiman's more eccentric and perverse moments. However, I found in the clever and skilled text a story worth experiencing, and one which matches or exceeds Gaiman's other attempts in the modern fantasy genre.

The story is not as epic or dire as Gaiman's tend to be, and without that there is a loss of urgency in the story. This is not really a deficiency, however, as the playful humor could not cohabitate comfortably with an ever-steepening plot curve.

The work fits into Gaiman's usual mode, exploring the myths and psychologies that most interest him. It may lose some of his fans in that it is less dark and brooding, less hopeless, but this could hardly be counted a loss. Any reader who wants more of the same can re-read his old works. the rest of us may appreciate seeing a master storyteller exploring his form in a new and engaging way.

My Fantasy Book Suggestions ...more

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Jun 08, 2008 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: blog

A Digression and a Review:

When I was a child who was much too prone to being serious for her own good, there was a catalpa tree in our backyard. Now, if you don't know what a catalpa tree is, it's worth a Google. Catalpas are beautiful and exotic, with giant leaves we used as "plates" to have fairy-like meals of mulberry and honeysuckle (with mimosa blossoms as a bit of garnish), giant bean pods that hung down like sylvan fingers ready to ensnare an unsuspecting child, white orchid-like flowers A Digression and a Review:

When I was a child who was much too prone to being serious for her own good, there was a catalpa tree in our backyard. Now, if you don't know what a catalpa tree is, it's worth a Google. Catalpas are beautiful and exotic, with giant leaves we used as "plates" to have fairy-like meals of mulberry and honeysuckle (with mimosa blossoms as a bit of garnish), giant bean pods that hung down like sylvan fingers ready to ensnare an unsuspecting child, white orchid-like flowers that would shower down while we swung on the tire swing below. In its boughs, I could pretend to be Pocahontas, a female Mowgli, or Jana of the Jungle. I would climb up and look down to the ground so far below, filled with delicious terror at how impossibly high I was. This tree seemed massive--big enough to hold all of my dreams and wildest flights of fancy. It, to paraphrase Zora Neale Hurston, seemed to hold dawn and doom in its branches.

As an adult, however, this tree that looms so gargantuan in my imaginary landscape seems small and shrunken, like a wizened grandparent, its limbs not so big, and I realize that, while I felt like I was climbing to the top of a skyscraper, I was barely 10 feet off the ground.

I bring this up because this is the closest approximation I can make to the difference between reading as a child and reading as an adult. As a child, there was a magic in stories, and I'm not talking about pixie dust and wands (although there was certainly some of that). There was a magic in not knowing (or caring) where a story was going. A magic to realizing why, hey, that main character is kind of like me. A magic to finding that you could read the same story over and over and over again and it would never get old and would never be the same story twice, not really. The colors were brighter. The emotions were palpable. There was nothing but possibility. And, yes, there's certainly still magic in the stories I read as an adult, but it's never quite the same, is it? I'm a little more jaded in that, as soon as I can predict where the story is going, I lose a little interest. There's a little more cynicism, a little more impatience with an "I've been here before" narrative, and a little more sadness in knowing that I can never immerse myself in adult stories with the same abandon as that 10 year old reading under the catalpa tree.

Now, I bring this up to explain that this is why I love Neil Gaiman. Gaiman can, more so than any other author, create that childlike awe of story within the adult me without telling a children's story. It's a peculiar and wonderful literary alchemy, this ability to take the adult world, the "real" world, and transform it into a place where one can find the same charm, humor, unpredictability, and enchantment found in the best children's narratives. And Anansi Boys is such a book.

A companion book to American Gods, Anansi Boys, follows the story of Fat Charlie, son of Mr. Nancy, a rascal of a man with a wicked sense of humor, an eye for the ladies, and a knack for purposely embarrassing his introverted, sensitive son. When Mr. Nancy dies, the now grown-up, soon to be married, and tenuously employed Fat Charlie is relieved that his father can never humiliate him again; however he soon finds out that life is not going to settle into a mundane, predictable pattern for him. He learns that his father was Anansi, the trickster spider god of African folklore, and he learns that he has a brother, Spider, who inherited his father's mischievous spirit and magical abilities. It's not long before the reunion between the two brothers breaks out into a serious (and frequently hilarious) case of sibling rivalry, with Spider usurping Fat Charlie's apartment, girlfriend, and life, and Fat Charlie going to extreme lengths to rid himself of his demigod brother.

Anansi Boys lacks the darkness of American Gods and is a much more whimsical, comedic read. Initially, this did cause a bit of a disconnect for me until I gave in to the story without trying to connect it with or hold it up to my expectations of American Gods. While following the adventures of Fat Charlie, I found myself laughing aloud and relishing each twist and turn in the story (as well as looking forward to the humorous "in which" chapter titles). Gaiman's love of story is evident and, as we learn through his depiction of Anansi folktales, the stories we tell and the stories we live are important not just for entertainment, but for creating the world as it should be. And the world as it should be is something as close as possible to a catalpa tree as seen through the eyes of a child--a place where anything and everything is possible, because that's where real magic resides.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder ...more

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Jan 30, 2018 Miranda Reads rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook, 2018-finer-books-club-reading-chall

Fat Charlie (his dad gave him the nickname (it's a sore spot)) spent his entire life absolutely mortified by his dad.

Of course, everyone's parents are embarrassing. It goes with the territory. The nature of parents is to embarrass merely by existing, just as it is the nature of children of a certain age to cringe with embarrassment

Then his dad does the unthinkable - he had the nerve to die. Now Fat Charlie has to go back to America for the first time in years and midway through the funeral - ...more

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Sep 08, 2018 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: neil-gaiman, monster-mash-of-a-mess, havanas-en-masse, sparkling, found-in-the-maze

Well, this felt a bit like a spider getting drunk while reading a history of literary genres, and then spinning a thread and getting all tangled up in the different genres himself while trying to make sense of the pattern he created.

The web is a fable posing as a detective story posing as an embarrassing coming of age and heartbreak story mixed with fantasy and crime, put in a treasure chest and shipped off to the pirates of the Caribbean, where it decides to change shape and take a chapter's Well, this felt a bit like a spider getting drunk while reading a history of literary genres, and then spinning a thread and getting all tangled up in the different genres himself while trying to make sense of the pattern he created.

The web is a fable posing as a detective story posing as an embarrassing coming of age and heartbreak story mixed with fantasy and crime, put in a treasure chest and shipped off to the pirates of the Caribbean, where it decides to change shape and take a chapter's break in the realm of spooky ghost stories, before wrapping up as a social satire on the nature of love and happiness.

To be fair, the author added the most accurate and funny description of a monstrous hangover I have ever read, and while letting the reader look like a question mark most of the time, he also makes several of the reader's days by creating laughing-out-loud moments of nonsensical, witty humour in the middle of a comedy which could have the subtitle "the tragedy of the human condition".

Bowing to Sartre's existentialism, he also creates a mini-hell of his preferred definition: "l'enfer, c'est les autres", and instead of eternally grilling humans in their frustrating interaction in the closed-off hell-cave, he lets a dark and mean and dumb-as-a-brick brutal god go bonkers whenever a tiny ex-human says something annoyingly irritating. Killing it off is a meaningless feat, of course, as it plays the honorable part of Prometheus' liver in this firework of storytelling:

"Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each."

That is a wisdom I will cherish from now on, but even deeper layers of learning were reached in the important science of how to wear a demanding hat and how not to blame a lime for the pickle you're in!

Neil Gaiman is the god of storytellers - which might well be a curse in his universe, as gods are constantly in trouble for having too much imagination and too little impulse control. They're a perfect mirror of their creators, obviously.

Wonderful, spidery, funny, - beyond the realm of descriptive adjectives! ...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Apatt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, fantasy-top20

Previously Goodreads listed this book as “Anansi Boys (American Gods #2)”, this has since been fixed by Raven the ace GR librarian. Anyway, Anansi Boys is not American Gods #2, the character Anansi does, however, appears in American Gods (as Mr. Nancy) so the two books are related but there is no need to read one to follow the other.

Anansi Boys is about Anansi’s two sons, the absence of an apostrophe-S after Anansi’s name notwithstanding. The first one we are introduced to is Charles Nancy, ...more

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Apr 15, 2014 Fabian rated it it was amazing

A delight (& the first of Gaiman's books that I've read to get the full ***** from me)! It's got that outrageous "Freaky Friday"/Prince & the Pauper narrative; Britishisms a-la Evelyn Waugh; and a peck of Douglas Adams's brand of whimsy (this is infinitely better than Hitchhiker's Guide, & much better than the author's own Stardust AND Neverwhere). It's adorably Beetlejuician!! What's not to like, huh?

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Oct 10, 2011 Maggie Stiefvater rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommended

I kept intending to write a proper review/ recommendation of ANANSI BOYS, which I read while I was in Australia, but for some reason, every time I sat down to write it, all that came out were words in one syllables, which makes for a lousy book review. Sample copy of my early blog posts about ANANSI BOYS:

This book is good.
This book is fast.
This book is fun.
This book is what it says it is.
Which is fun.
This book is a good, fast, fun read.

I'm just not sure it's going to get any better than that. I ...more

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Jul 26, 2010 Jason Koivu rated it liked it

Anansi Boys is like a rollercoaster without the loops, very few twists and one that keeps the speed to a minimum. You strap yourself in, ready for excitement that never materializes. My god, I've never felt more luke warm towards a book in my life.

The mildly interesting story is of a somewhat relatable modern day slacker coming to grips with his father's and brother's overwhelming personalities as well as a fantasy world he didn't know existed. I'm tired of stories with modern day slackers ...more

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Mar 25, 2008 Brad rated it it was ok

Shelves: fantasy

I love Neil Gaiman's Sandman so much that I am desperate to love the rest of his work, but I can't do much more than like it because it's mostly only okay.

He deals with all the stuff I love -- mythology, the occult, death, dreams, the urban fantastic -- but he's too tongue-in-cheek. When I read one of his novels, I feel like I'm reading the Nick Hornby of fantasy. Too clever, too hip and too cool for his own good.

It's not that I don't like his prose work. I do. And I even love some of it (like ...more

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Dec 20, 2010 Madeline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites, fantasy

It's remarkable, really, how long I was permitted to exist without reading Neil Gaiman. In retrospect, I suppose it's a good thing that I didn't read any of his books until college - had I been exposed to his work in high school, the result would have been a near-obsession filled with pages of awful fanfiction and an emotional meltdown when I learned that Mr. Gaiman is happily married.

But this didn't happen, thankfully. My first Neil Gaiman book was American Gods, and when my roommate (a much ...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Shannon rated it really liked it

Shelves: my-very-best-reads, books-reviewed, fantasy-scifi, audio-book, owned

ANANSI BOYS (hereinafter AB) is the archetype tale of the hero's quest but in place of the typical warrior hero is a fool, and, oh, it happens to take place in our days and there is the wonder of something magical yet not totally seen.

Our fool of a hero is Fat Charlie. He used to be chubby as a kid but now he's in good enough shape yet everyone remembers him as Fat Charlie so the name sticks, much to his chagrin, and, it's all the fault of his father.

Wait, did I tell you his father is a ...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Gabrielle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2018, fantasy, own-a-copy, reviewed, uk, urban-fantasy

"Stories are like spiders, with all their long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look so pretty when you see the under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each."

My friend Kelly is one of those wonderful, eccentric people who is perfectly happy to be herself and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. I wouldn't call her weird, but I would definitely not call her normal. Her daughters "Stories are like spiders, with all their long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look so pretty when you see the under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each."

My friend Kelly is one of those wonderful, eccentric people who is perfectly happy to be herself and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. I wouldn't call her weird, but I would definitely not call her normal. Her daughters rebelled against their mother's so-called weirdness by being some of the most charming, yet unrelentingly normal humans I've ever met. Normal hair, normal clothes, normal academic pursuits, normal jobs, normal boyfriends... Sometimes, Kelly isn't sure where they picked up that eerie normality...

I thought about them as I re-read "Anansi Boys"; Fat Charlie is exactly like Kelly's girls, cringing at his father's eccentricities and strangeness, and doing his very best to blend in as much as he can. He hasn't seen or spoken to his father in years, and that's just fine by him. He leads a perfectly ordinary life, with an ordinary job in bookkeeping and an ordinary fiancée - and he is fairly pleased with the placidity of it all. Until he learns that his father passed (in an appropriately embarrassing way) and attends the funeral only to learn that he has a mysterious brother he doesn't remember. And then that brother comes to pay him a visit...

This is an unusual Gaiman novel: it feels like a slightly different voice than the one regular readers might be used to. It is also much more deliberately funny than other Gaiman books: his weird and wonderful British humor always shines through in his work, but it usually feels more accidental. Here, he wants you to laugh, he's trying to set you up for a chuckle at every page. And that's part of my problem with this book: this attempt at being humorous feels strained. Neil doesn't need to try, he should really just let it happen on it's own...

The other element that makes this book not as stellar as other Gaiman books is the characters. I just didn't particularly enjoy any of them, and felt them all to be under-developed. Spider is a total dick, I simply don't get why Fat Charlie wants to marry a super-boring cold-fish like Rosie and Fat Charlie himself just takes so long to get his shit together... Even the bad guy lacks panache... I think I wanted more Anansi, more of his zaniness, more over-the-top; and the way the characters were drawn up just felt lukewarm.

Don't get me wrong: this is not a bad book. I don't think Neil Gaiman has it in him to write a bad book. But it definitely doesn't have the same caliber as some of his other works. 3 and a half stars. ...more

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Apr 22, 2017 Darwin8u rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

“The important thing about songs is that they're just like stories. They don't mean a damn unless there's people listenin' to them.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

description

I spent the evening avoiding my nightly duties to my family while slowly pruning in the tub while reading this. Time to transfer back into my normal wrinkles and be a grown up.

The book was good. Not great. But it was playful. I can see how many of my friends would love it. Stop. Many of my friends DO love it. It is a song and dance about ...more

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Jan 27, 2011 Emory's Defunct Profile rated it did not like it

Shelves: reviewed

Mr. Gaiman has the same problem as Terry Pratchet. He can present the material, but he can't make me care. It's not a good sign when you're halfway through a book and you realize that if you put down the book and walked away right then and there, and never found out how the book ended, you wouldn't care. I don't care whether things work out between him and Rosie. I don't care if his dad is still alive or not. I don't care if he and his brother ever make up. I wouldn't care if the author ended ...more

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Aug 15, 2008 Stephen rated it really liked it

Shelves: award-nominee-locus, multiple-award-nominee, 2000-2005, award-nominee-mythopoeic-fantasy, award-winner-mythopoeic-fantasy, sfsite-reader-s-poll-top-10, mythstories-and-legends, fantasy, award-nominee-british-fantasy, audiobook

4.0 to 4.5 stars. Another superb story by one of my favorite authors. While not a sequel to his superb American Gods, it shares the title character with that book along with some references to his adventures in that story. While those references add to the richness of the tale, there is no necessity of reading American God first (except for the obvious one that it is one of the best books ever).

Anyway, this story center around Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, a timid, passive man from London whose ...more

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Oct 03, 2017 J.K. Grice rated it liked it

Shelves: dark-fantasy

To me, Gaiman has never surpassed or even equaled his writing in NEVERWHERE. Here again, I found ANANSI BOYS about on the same level with AMERICAN GODS. A pretty decent read, but nothing terribly special. It's one of those books I had no problem finishing, but I would definitely not read it again.

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Apr 16, 2018 Robin (Bridge Four) rated it it was ok

Shelves: witches-warlocks-and-magic, uf-pnr, ghosts, 2018-reads

I really can’t decide if I like Neil Gaiman. So far I’ve read a few of his books and they are missing something that I just can’t seem to put my finger on. I think what I’ve come to discover is that this is one of the rare instances that I prefer an authors movies more than the books they write.

At one point around 80% in I almost just put the book down to wander off into something else never to return to it. But it seemed silly to read almost all of a book and not finish.

description

But I finished and ...more

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Apr 21, 2017 Ashley Daviau rated it it was amazing

I enjoyed this book WAY more my second time reading it. The first time I read it I went into it thinking it was a continuation of American Gods and it most definitely is not that so I was a little let down. But this time I knew what I was getting into and I was able to fully appreciate the spectacular story that Anansi Boys actually is! I thought the plot was incredibly interesting and I loved learning more about Anansi and his background. You get little glimpses in American Gods but this was so ...more

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Mar 20, 2016 Donna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

2.5 stars
I should have known better than to try another book by Gaiman after too many disappointments from him in the past. But I've read just enough good work by him to keep me coming back, hoping to strike gold again. Unfortunately, all I found here was fool's gold. Maybe that sounds harsh, considering the story was very imaginative, rich in details stemming from a myth originating in an African folktale. But here's why I think this book glitters only on the surface.

The character from the 2.5 stars
I should have known better than to try another book by Gaiman after too many disappointments from him in the past. But I've read just enough good work by him to keep me coming back, hoping to strike gold again. Unfortunately, all I found here was fool's gold. Maybe that sounds harsh, considering the story was very imaginative, rich in details stemming from a myth originating in an African folktale. But here's why I think this book glitters only on the surface.

The character from the above folktale takes the form of a spider and is the spirit of all knowledge of stories. This spider--Anansi--often takes the form of a man, and that's where this book begins, with the death of Mr. Nancy, a seemingly carefree and crafty fellow. He has a son he referred to as Fat Charlie, even though Charlie had only been a bit plump for a few years before adolescence. When Mr. Nancy dies, Charlie discovers his father was the god, Anansi, whose powers were inherited by his son--not Charlie, though, but Charlie's brother, Spider, whom Charlie never knew existed. With the help of some magic, Charlie wishes to meet the brother he never knew, which is a case of being "careful what you wish for" as chaos ensues.

So far so good, with what seemed like a family drama rich in myth with magic unfolding. But despite an explanation for his behavior given later, Charlie was a bit too wimpy for a main character whom I'm supposed to root for. He has a fiancé who controls him and a boss who pushes him around and demeans him, and then a newly met brother who challenges him in other ways, and Charlie takes this treatment as his due, along with a nickname he outgrew long ago. And to make matters worse, this is about all the character development Charlie or any other characters get as this story turns into a mish mash when combining a family drama with a crime story on top of multiple fantasy elements. With so much going on, instead of the story racing forward, it crawled sideways like a crab, weaving this way and that, until eventually it tired and reached its destination. So many details, which added nothing but length to this story, bogged it down, the resolution a missed opportunity when a twist at the two-thirds mark had me hoping for more.

Did I like anything about this book? The thing I liked best which allowed me to get through it was the audiobook's narrator, Lenny Henry, who reeled off a dozen voices with ease, the pacing of his reading zipping along faster than the actual story, yet easy to understand. His performance earned five stars. I also enjoyed the myths and the twist in the story. If only the story hadn't had as many arms as Shiva, and the characters hadn't been one dimensional, it might have had a chance to come together with the characters developing into beings I could truly care about.

I really wish I could say I enjoyed this book more than I did since the author is so popular, his books and writing adored by many more people than I have fingers and toes. But I found it tedious, and I found it to be aimless too much of the time when I was aiming to be entertained by a story with depth. It is a companion book to American Gods, but can be read as a standalone. If you enjoyed other books by Gaiman, you'll probably enjoy this one, too. And I will be happy that you did, but it wasn't for me.
...more

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Jul 03, 2017 Amanda NEVER MANDY rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, neil-before-me

My brain is mush and is refusing to cooperate with this review. I have tried writing from my angry ocean, my sarcastic sea and my happy puddle only to discover that the water is either frozen over, shallow or all dried up. I do have a waterfall of sorrow I could tap into but once I go over it there isn’t any coming back for a bit and I am not up for the useless back paddling.

I liked the book but I did not like it as much as I did American Gods. Technically, it’s not fair to compare the two ...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Puck rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-read, people-of-colour, fantasy, humor

2nd read, 2019 : I had forgotten about the lime, so that made my reread already worth it! Overall I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first time, although I now really noticed how sloooow the plot is, and how strong the insta-love. Why both Spider and Charlie are so head-over-heels for Rosie beats me...Maeve remains the queen of the female characters. You go honey, get your bloody revenge!

Original review:

“The important thing about songs is that they're just like stories. They don't mean ...more

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Nov 24, 2019 Anita rated it really liked it

Another terrific literary journey from Neil Gaiman. Started a little slow, but gradually picked up pace and the fantasy adventure begins. Gaiman creates such incredible alternate realities, the worlds of gods and spirits become so real and tangible you can't help but be caught up in them like they are part of your own scene. Very emotional ending for me, but the emotions were elation and satisfaction. This has become my favorite Gaiman novel.

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Jun 27, 2017 Faith rated it really liked it

Shelves: audio, overdrive

This was my first experience with Gaiman and it was a perfect way for me to recover from a string of books that I did not like at all. It was a witty urban fantasy and the audiobook had excellent narration by Lenny Henry.

Fat Charlie discovers upon the death of his estranged father that his father was the god Anansi and that Fat Charlie has a brother named Spider who can be summoned by giving a message to any spider he encounters. Unfortunately, Fat Charlie sends this message and the arrival of ...more

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Aug 23, 2017 Vivian rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, 2017-odyssey, fantasy

Well, that was completely different.

The start of this was a little rough going for me. I had a hard time not wanting to shake Fat Charlie Nancy. He's the kind of guy that's a doormat for about everyone else in his life, and it's a little disheartening. I'm a buck up and cheerleader type, also a slug the A-holes in the face type, though apparently one look is usually enough for someone to reconsider their commitment to a situation. Something about the I don't care if I don't win as long as you ...more

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Nov 29, 2018 Bea rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2018, 3-star-reads, audiobook, sci-fi, gaiman

3 stars I guess. Got kind of distracted towards the end but understood the gist of the story.

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“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn't a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.” — 1408 likes

“Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.” — 711 likes

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