Reviews with content warning for Torture - American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition

American Gods is a book whose meticulously crafted through unique world building and vivid imagery, it's also enjoyable to read the many monotonous moments of the book.
It begins very strongly with a lot of mystery and excitement, and ends even stronger, raising the whole book up another level, but the middle feels quite tedious at times. It favours the inclusion of its world of ancient gods in modern times over traditional forms of drama. This makes the read an incredibly slow one. And at 800 pages, it's definitely not for people who struggle to read slowly paced books.
But the world is so incredibly well thought out, it almost doesn't matter as it doubles down on its worldbuilding storytelling, the author trusting his ability to create a world so good, it surpassed regular dramatic tension. Not to say there aren't tense moments, because there are, just very far and few between pages. Again, this makes the story a pleasurable but monotonous read.

Although, what is it with good authors and uncomfortable sexual references? This book often has mentions of rape and pedophelia in multiple moments. Some work in its context, others feel needlessly included. The book also has a fixation on sex, which is fair? But I was personally not a fan of just how fixated it was. It never goes into explicit detail but it is implied multiple times throughout the book.

Overall, it was worth the read because of its world and it's faults can be very easily overlooked.

Content Warnings

eni_iilorak's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-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

Content Warnings

usually_sleep_deprived's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

melodykmtx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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? It's complicated

4.5

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corriejn's review against another edition

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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

neali's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.5

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