Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

40 reviews

bunnybunnysenpai's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective slow-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? No

4.5

American Gods is a novel about Shadow, a newly released convict whose wife died a day before his release. Having nowhere to go, he follows Mr. Wednesday, who sucks him into a world where the old gods of every religion live in America in corporeal form. The majority of the book is Wednesday and Shadow trying to gather a force of old gods to battle with the new gods (ie media, television, radio). Shadow goes on a long journey, meeting many gods and humans along the way, travelling all throughout America in the process.

This book took me nearly 9 months to finish, but I am so glad I did. The beginning of this book draws you in with a very interesting premise. The middle gets a bit bland and I struggled to get through it for quite a while, but the ending was truly worth it. I loved listening to the audiobook as well, because it was a full cast performance, making the slower parts of the book a lot more bearable. The diversity in characters as well as the fun twists that happen throughout kept me interested enough through the blander parts of the book to keep me reading, and I am very glad I didn't decide to drop it.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Death, Suicide, Sexual content, and Gun violence

marthadude's review against another edition

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Gaslighting, Grief, Alcohol, Body horror, Car accident, Child death, Fatphobia, Gore, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Slavery, Vomit, War, Blood, Death, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Colonisation, Slavery, and Racism

Minor: Incest, Pedophilia, and Adult/minor relationship

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, Cannibalism, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Cancer, and Child death

neali's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Slavery and Child death

Minor: Rape, Police brutality, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Cancer, and Torture

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

skudiklier's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

3.0

This book was really weird, and though I liked it, I'm not sure I would recommend it. I also don't think I would have liked it as much if I hadn't been listening to the audiobook; I may have given up if I were reading a physical copy. 

For most of this book, I couldn't really tell you what it was about, or what the main plot was. Not that that's always a bad thing, but still. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Car accident, Death, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, and Murder

Moderate: Fatphobia, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

Minor: Pedophilia

Anti-Romani slur (g slur) Predatory relationship between older man and young girl who may be underage Body horror to do with corpses, maggots, etc

serenspace's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious sad slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexual content, and Body horror

nomora's review against another edition

adventurous challenging slow-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

4.0

Unexpectedly, I liked this book far better on the reread than I had when I had initially read it. This really is one of those where it is not the destination, but the journey that is important. Both for the protagonist and the reader. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Suicidal thoughts

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

Moderate: Animal death, Kidnapping, and Cannibalism

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

Death of spouse, autopsy procedures, prison, drowning

tiltedwhirled's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Murder, and Physical abuse