Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

41 reviews

spellygirl's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

It was ok. Almost DNF'ed it, and won't read again Would consider not reading it if you're sensitive to animal death etc, as I am. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Blood, Cannibalism, and Car accident

tarynlannister's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious reflective fast-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Slavery, and Car accident

Moderate: Gore, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Death, Drug use, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Alcohol, Colonisation, and War

veganecurrywurst's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I did enjoy this book. It had so many interesting concepts and I learned something. However I think that this book could be shorter some parts of the story just seemed dragged out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Murder, Gaslighting, and War

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Car accident, Cultural appropriation, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

Minor: Child death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Police brutality, and Car accident

mmefish's review against another edition

It is not a good sign when I start skipping more and more of the book. The main character is boring and I just don’t care.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death

desiderium_incarnate's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, and War

margretarson's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Rape, Slavery, and Blood

Moderate: Alcoholism, Racial slurs, and Toxic friendship

bluejayreads's review against another edition

adventurous tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

The story is a solid adventure through magic and a bunch of different mythologies, with Shadow following Mr. Wednesday through a lot of crazy stuff and meeting a host of interesting people. Then at the end it hits you with a bunch of twists one after the other and bumps a very good book up to a fantastic one. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Shadow is not, in a sense, a character. He's there, sure, and he says things and does things, but he doesn't feel like a fully realized person and I don't think he's supposed to. He has a lot going on all of the sudden that he doesn't really know how to deal with, and even another character points out that he doesn't seem very alive. That's a part of his character's journey, but he also functions as his namesake - a few stereotypes stacked together into the shape of a likeable but not remarkable shadow we the reader can follow to experience this world and these events. 

And said world and events are worth experiencing. The gods came with immigrants from the Old World, but America has forgotten the old gods and worship the new ones of technology and innovation that they create. There is a storm coming. Gods live among humans and survive on the worship and sacrifice they are given, and as you might imagine, the "new gods" of TV and phones and the internet are getting a bit more worship from Americans than Odin and Anansi and Ishtar. Mr. Wednesday wants to do something about that. 

His full plan isn't clear until the end of the book. But in the meantime, Mr. Wednesday takes Shadow all across America and to places beyond reality, meeting old gods and new ones and legends and monsters. Shadow rides a carousel into Odin's hall, plays checkers with the Slavic god of bad fortune in a dusty Chicago apartment, sporadically lives an ordinary life in a small town under an assumed name, and journeys to the halls of the dead. He meets a host of fascinating characters, some human but many not so much, and it's great to just follow him around and experience all the wonder and magic under the skin of the world we're familiar with. 

And then the book comes up on the end and hits you with several twists, one after the other, but it doesn't feel startling as much as the puzzle pieces finally fall into place all at once and the picture revealed is shockingly different from what you thought it would be. (To be fair, I probably would have called one of the twists early on if I'd been reading it instead of listening to an audiobook, but the other ones I don't think I would have seen coming either way.) Up to this point the book was absolutely good, but those twists bumped the needle of my opinion from "solidly good, I recommend it" to "stunning and magnificient." Whatever your opinion of the idea or the storyline or the characters, this book is worth studying just for technique, because this is how you write a twist ending. The whole story is great, but with the ending, it's a masterpiece. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Sexual content, Blood, and Medical content

Moderate: Animal death, Kidnapping, and Cannibalism

Minor: Racial slurs, Suicide, Transphobia, Excrement, Vomit, and Car accident

Death of spouse, autopsy procedures, prison, drowning

babayaga1989's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cancer, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Car accident, and Death of parent

7bayeb's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Sexual content, Violence, and Islamophobia

Moderate: Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, and Rape

Minor: Rape and Antisemitism

bravokidroxy's review against another edition

challenging funny mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

It was a book. It is asking to be made into a TV show so I’m really glad they’re doing that on HBO because I feel like that’s the only way that a story as dense as this one can be told without feeling like the slog it did here. The first 9 chapters, 230 pages or so, are thrilling and interesting with Gaiman’s style of throwing you into the hot pan with the MC on full display. Then for some unexplained reason we are removed from the main story line and set upon another much smaller feeling mystery. This sort of detour feels like it’s waiting to be filler episodes.

When we finally get back into the action I told my friend “I feel like this is all building to something but by the time it gets here the books going to be over” and I was not incorrect. The final boss took 100 pages and then we were in an epilogue with very little transition. 

Overall I think I was just too hyped up for this book, for it to work on me. I read it mostly on kindle and there were A Lot of typos which didn’t do much to the sorry for me but could be a problem for some of  y’all. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Infidelity, Grief, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Cancer, Confinement, and Car accident