American Gods (American Gods, #1) in Crazy Challenge Connection

May 13, 2017 Megan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: towers-teams-2017

3.5 stars rounded down

This was actually a really hard one to rate, as the rating I was going to give massively fluctuated throughout the book!

There was a lot about the book I really enjoyed, mostly the characters of the Gods that we meet along the way. The main character himself, as many other reviewers have mentioned, is pretty one-dimensional and not terribly interesting. I don't actually mind this though as he basically just provides a base for the reader to experience the actual interesting ...more

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Dec 27, 2015 Avisek Bandyopadhyay rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, awesome-reads, literary-genius

This book will always remain special to me. Not because, it deals with Old and New Gods or because it resonates with me but because I was reading the last chapter of this book when my granddad was in his deathbed. There's a scene in the book, Shadow, the protagonist, was reading a book when he was besides his mom's death bed. He kept on reading, hoping the fiction will let him escape to a different world and his mother kept dying bit by bit. But Shadow ignored her, his reality, thinking the book This book will always remain special to me. Not because, it deals with Old and New Gods or because it resonates with me but because I was reading the last chapter of this book when my granddad was in his deathbed. There's a scene in the book, Shadow, the protagonist, was reading a book when he was besides his mom's death bed. He kept on reading, hoping the fiction will let him escape to a different world and his mother kept dying bit by bit. But Shadow ignored her, his reality, thinking the book will keep him safe somewhere else. But it didn't. He crushed back into reality and from that day he stopped reading as books really doesn't help escaping the reality. I kept on remembering Shadow and how he must have felt. I kept on reading while my dad kept on updating me with my granddad's worsening situation over phone. But, I have to give the book this much. Reading about old gods (I always feel they are very powerful and very much sensitive) soothed me. (view spoiler)He was as jolly as the Gods in the book are, he was as updated as the old gods are and somehow, I knew, he would hit it off with the Gods. And he and my grand mom will live blissfully.
I also know they didn't choose nothingness and they would come out with flying colors when weighed against the feather, so they would spend their time in heaven, joking and fooling around with the Gods.

Coming back to the novel, I want to believe that the Old Gods or the idea of them when they were worshiped have stayed back in Earth. Since reading the book, I look at old people more curiously, thinking are they Gods in themselves ? What a trip Shadow had.

His vigil will be the best thing I read in a while. And Gaiman's writings, I dont have the credentials to even comment on that. I wanted to cling on them, live with those sentences.

I wish I knew a lot about Norse mythology or tribal Gods. I am so sure, I just skimmed over the top of the book, never enjoying the subtle references he made.

But the way, he tidied up the novel, every dots connected, I dont think I will be over this novel for quite sometime.

I am just so happy I discovered Neil Gaiman and Murakami. ...more

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Mar 17, 2018 Beth rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: like-the-cover

I won't call this book "too weird" — it's not like I finished it and then slunk off to the grocery store to buy some James Patterson — but I struggled with the first half. It seemed like just one bizarre, randomish thing after another. Zap! We're on a freaky carousel. Bing! We're in another dimension. Pow! We're drinking mead with a leprechaun.

It got going more in the second half when things were coming together, but damn. Neil Gaiman's mind is a strange place. ...more

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