Reviews

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

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besp00ked's review against another edition

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4.0

They are 100% dating :3

charlottej's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-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

4.25

broccsi's review against another edition

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funny medium-paced

3.5

my saw obsessed ass was so in love with the fact that there is a charater named adam
also, loved the humour
can't wait to watch the show with David Tennant!!

who_knew's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted slow-paced

2.5

ity This book... was not meant for me.
It's lighthearted and quick and funny and silly, I guess.
I hated every second of it.

What's the plot? We're stopping Armageddon. Why? Because..... it's the world! Humanity! Society!
We have to save the world!!
Okay, but like, what's at stake specifically? in a way that makes readers feel involved and invested....? The world!! okay. sure. What... do the characters like about the world? What does life mean to them, if this is going to be life-or-death?
Well, thank you for asking. The angel has a bookstore and the demon has a nice car.
So. Gotta save the world, you know.

People read this as a love story sometimes because the male main characters care about nothing except one another.
If you squint.
Really, they just care about nothing and also they know one another.

In so far as characters go, this felt like reading fan fiction (which... I guess it sort of is, biblical and all that) in the sense that they're never really humanized for you. It's like you're expected to already know them and care about them. But those are strangers. That's man-who-wears-sunglasses-indoors, man-that-seems-gay, and 11-year-old-boy. They're cardboard cutouts.

There's a lot of wit in the writing. That was really enjoyable at times.
It's almost jarring, then, how out-of-place and forced the actual Jokes are. And a surprising amount of jokes at the expense of gayness, misogyny(including rape, cheers), and racism. Not inherently offensive jokes, but ones that feel unnecessary and tone-deaf either way.
"It was written in the 90s!" -- so true. This review, however, is from 2024, and there are jokes that don't hold up. And so many of the jokes just exist for the sheer sake of existing, tagged awkwardly onto the back end of a scene that stopped contributing to the story three paragraphs ago, or hasn't started yet. It's masturbatory.

The scenes are short, which could make the story feel fast paced and exciting if you were fully immersed, but I wasn't. At all. So it made everything feel longer instead, just one thing after another after another.... And these scenes never seemed to do much, so you end up skimming.

There's no tension. Not between characters, not internally, not within the plot.

I hate being a person who says "It insists upon itself" but you have the Moral Of The Story being explained to you in long paragraphs over several pages by an eleven year old. After being written in a way that you never cared in the first place. That's a lot.

All in all, the best moments of this book for me have felt like when you walk in on someone else watching a sitcom you'd never pick up on your own. I finished the book. I lingered in the metaphorical doorway without ever sitting down on the couch. I enjoyed 10% of the jokes. The plot was empty and by the time the book was over, the characters were still just quirky strangers.