Reviews tagging 'Gore'

American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition: A Novel by Neil Gaiman

58 reviews

madradstarchild's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Death, Violence, Alcohol, War

Minor: Cancer, Confinement, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Classism

ronan_lesh's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Sexual content, Slavery, Murder

Moderate: Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Car accident, War

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Xenophobia

elisteixner's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence

Moderate: Gore

hobbesmom's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Murder

tarynlannister's review against another edition

5.0

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Slavery, Car accident

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

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

veganecurrywurst's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous funny mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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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, War

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

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

desiderium_incarnate's review against another edition

2.75

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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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, War

bluejayreads's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous tense

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

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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, Medical content

Moderate: Animal death, Kidnapping, Cannibalism

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

Death of spouse, autopsy procedures, prison, drowning