Intro and American Gods

          Hello, Everyone! Just thought I'd give a quick intro before I started in on my first review. I'm Holly...and well, this is my book review blog. I adore books and decided that I should put some of my hard-earned Lit major skills to some fun use and review books that I read. Feel free to email me or comment on books that you have read and tell me what you thought of them! I'd love to hear from any one who's reading my blog. I hope you enjoy!! Without further ado...

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

          The book is based around the idea of the “old gods” vs. the “new gods”. The old gods vary from Norse gods to primitive tribal gods from thousands of years ago to pretty much any ancient god you've ever heard of. The new gods are modern things: gods of technology, of television, of cars, etc. I really enjoyed the premise: the idea that the old gods followed their people when they came to America, then found themselves stuck in a world where they were disappearing from peoples minds replaced by modern technology. However, the book alludes to a battle between the two for over ¾ of the novel, only to disappoint in the end with a strange twist and no battle at all. While this may not bother some of you, I didn't enjoy spending an entire 500 pages waiting for what promised to be a very cool battle, only for a weak twist.

          As far as characters go, they varied. The main character, Shadow, was very...well...blank. About halfway through the book, his wife, Laura, even says of him “You're not dead...But I'm not sure if you're alive, either. Not really.” Shadow seems to have no deep thoughts of his own. The reader follows him throughout the book, but most of the time, is left to wonder why he is doing what he's doing. Why does he help Wednesday? What is his real motivation to do anything really? He is a static character, never changing--even after he meets gods, has a host of completely bizarre dreams, and takes trips to impossible places that shouldn't exist. Nothing seems to phase him. It is nice to know that Gaiman specifically intended for Shadow to seem so blank and dead. However, Shadow never struck me as a good main character. With such a blank character, the reader never gets a chance to feel any connection to what happens to Shadow. Deaths or crazy events have no effect on the reader since they seem to have no effect on Shadow. Even the death of his wife only brings emotion to Shadow for a few chapters at most.

          Many of the secondary characters were enjoyable and I had no issues with any of them. They were varied and well characterized, with, honestly, more motivation for their actions than Shadow. Czernobog and Mr. Nancy were particular favorites of mine. Both of them had unique personalities. The reader could clearly see why Czernobog did not want to join Wednesday's battle and why Mr. Nancy did. Hinzelmann was another favorite of mine. An old man prone to telling exaggerated stories, he provided the biggest twist to the end of the story. The twist in the plot surrounding Hinzelmann rescued the entire ending from mediocrity. Even Shadow's dead wife had better characterization than Shadow. At least her motivation for action was either rescuing Shadow, or maintaining as much of a life as a dead woman can achieve.

          All-in-all, I can say that, despite all my griping, it was a fairly enjoyable read. I have a fondness for Neil Gaiman's plots, even though his characters do tend to annoy me.

3/5 Stars