Reviews with content warning for Gore - American Gods

I REALLY loved this. I've read 3 other books by Gaiman and never really got why he was so popular, I thought they were good but not great. But to me this was great. It felt like reading an adult Percy Jackson (just no greek/roman pantheon which I admire) and Gaiman captures America better than any other book or movie or anything. If anyone wants to know what America is like, I'd hand them this. The plot is so expertly crafted and I have to give a BIG shout out to the way Gaiman wrote Laura. The summary mentions she dies early on and I kind of assumed that the fridged wife would be Shadow's "tragic man pain story" but Laura is so much more important and relevant to the plot and conplicated than a martyred wife. This book really defied a lot of my expectations of what it would be like and it was excellent

Content Warnings

corriejn's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

4.5

I thought most of this book was great, but certain sections (no spoilers) dragged out far too long. I did listen to the ~12k words longer, original author's cut edition, so maybe those were some of the sections that were cut down a good bit for the original publishing.

Content Warnings

marthadude's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

madradstarchild's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

anniefwrites's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. I think that Neil Gaiman is the master of mood--he can create ambience and tension like no other writer I know of. And I really loved the twists and turns that occur in the last few chapters of the book. It felt like finally solving a puzzle, which is such a satisfying feeling, but I wish there were more moments like that throughout because I often felt a bit adrift and confused with all of the different settings and characters and the sort of removed perspective of Shadow guiding the way. I think it's also a product of its time--I really didn't vibe with the valorization of police or the sort of flat female characters, who were often mere bodies of sexual desire for male characters. The masculinity of the book could sometimes be grating for me as a female reader, like how so many men just... pee in random places for no discernable reason. It felt like it was a book designed with a male reader in mind, and I was just looking in at times. I also wonder what this book would have been like if written by an Indigenous author; though Gaiman does go into the Native aspects of the mythology of America, I think it could have gone further. But I do think that it's a really unique story, that the individual locales within each section of the book were really vivid, and that the ending was strong and exciting.

Content Warnings