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nzmerchant's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Graphic: Murder and Blood
Moderate: Death and Death of parent
somewhatavidreader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Minor: Body horror, Blood, and Medical content
franklola's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Confinement, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Death, and Stalking
niccolowilliam's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Animal death, Alcohol, Violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Gore, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Death, Body shaming, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Medical content, Grief, Bullying, Body horror, Rape, Murder, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, and Death of parent
Moderate: Eating disorder, Gun violence, and Police brutality
yrlaevelyn's review against another edition
- 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
4.5
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Murder
orlagal's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Grief, Sexism, Sexual content, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Cancer, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Death, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Mental illness, and Vomit
eve_o's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Body shaming, Murder, and Blood
Minor: Alcohol, Violence, Confinement, and Cursing
sauvageloup's review against another edition
- 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
2.5
[spoilers throughout]
Pros:
- the imagination of it really was excellent. the mythic gods were brilliantly described and creepy, with the Bird Woman lurking in the field from Charlie's train and generally being very spooky
- the characters were done well, especially Daisy and Maeve, I thought. they were brought in rather randomly and then woven in to be intricately part of the story and that was very effective and satisfying. Graham Coats was a convincing and awful villain, mundane enough to be realistic but still so uneasily disturbing at the same time. Him being the human equivalent of Tiger was clever and cool
- how the story all tied up was my favourite part, very satisfying. there was a great deal of character growth in Charlie and Spider, and to a lesser extent Rosie and Daisy too. Charlie and Spider's arc reminds me of the two sisters in that children's story I read - where one reckless sister learns to be more thoughtful, and the too-careful sister learns to be a little brave. they were two parts of the same whole (loved that reveal) and they needed to come together to balance each other out a bit.
- Charlie's magic coming into itself, and him becoming more confident with it, was great to see too. he had his own sort of magic, as long as he could believe in it he could make others believe it too. and i'm glad he wasn't totally healed, ie. he still got a bit of stage fright beforehand.
- in the interview questions, Gaiman says that he never intended for it to go as dark as it does with Maeve's muder, but I'm glad it did. I enjoyed the dark punch of the Bird Woman's sinister awfulness, Tiger's violence, and Graham being frighteningly terrible. it definitely upped the stakes and gave the book a real bite - the gods felt like convincingly powerful and also callous beings.
cons:
- so I hated the start and middle of this book. Charlie was painful to read, Spider I loathed and Rosie frustrated me (and continued to throughout the book). I understand that there was a satisfying arc for the brothers' characters and Spider definitely got his comeuppance, but I still wanted to DNF it because i was so fed up with them.
- and the biggest part of why I hated it, and the point that was never dealt with, was how Spider raped Rosie. She never wanted sex with Charlie and she knew him and planned to marry him. Spider had sex with her under false presences (legally rape) and using his "miracle" magic on her. He influences her to go away or do as he wishes with no compunction and there's no consequences for this except him being a bit sad he lost her for a spell. She slaps him and its forgotten about. Charlie also makes little to no effort to save Rosie from getting duped and influenced by Spider and is only pissed that *he's* losing his fiancée. he gives absolutely no shits that she, a woman who would never have had sex with Charlie when she's herself, got magicked into having sex. Really disgusting
- I know this was written in 2005, but there are some horrible little asides or so called jokes. One I remember was saying something derogatory about people who see things, ie. making a mean-spirited joke of schizophrenia, another about cross-dressing, and there were many other places I winced. Gaiman says Anansi is meant to be about 'the revenge of the weak', but the book is still cruel to people already trodden on by society, and it's treatment of Rosie was shit as hell
- Gaiman also says in the interview notes at the back that it's a comic book. I found very little in it funny. There was one point I chuckled and that was it, I think. the jokes just didn't land for me.
so... very mixed feelings. Hated the start and middle, but the end was very satisfying and I stayed up late to finish it.
Graphic: Grief, Gore, Death of parent, Body horror, Terminal illness, Murder, Gaslighting, Torture, Violence, Animal death, Alcohol, Medical content, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Confinement, and Blood
Moderate: Sexual assault and Rape
I think what happens with Rosie counts as sexual assault or rape, but others may not see it that wayelizlizabeth's review
- 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
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Murder, and Violence
bluejayreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Anansi Boys: Don't like the main character as much as I liked Shadow, but it's still pretty good
Anansi Boys update: I hate all these characters
Probably going to finish Anansi Boys after all, there's finally something interesting
Not nearly as good as American Gods
- Charlie was spineless, ambitionless, and upset that things in his life are going badly while at the same time doing next to nothing about them. You could probably find his picture in the dictionary next to the entry for "pusillanimous."
- Spider is an asshole. He's an incredibly charming asshole, partly due to god-powers from being the son of a god, but he has no regard for other people's feelings. Not really in the sense that he enjoys hurting people, but more in that he'll take what he wants and it won't even cross his mind that other people might have feelings about it.
- Rosie is a do-gooder in the most derogatory sense, the kind of person who wants to feel like she's helping people but she does the deciding about what helps and if it actually makes your situation worse, too bad, she thinks she did good and she's very proud of herself about it.
- Rosie's mother is every evil mother-in-law and controlling mother stereotype and actually supposed to be unlikeable, so I don't feel too bad about disliking her.
- Grahame Coats is a slimy weasel of a financial advisor and he's supposed to be unlikeable too.
To be fair, "I hate all these characters" was not entirely accurate. I didn't hate Daisy, but she wasn't in enough of the book for me to particularly like her, either. And Charlie had some major character growth in the last 15% of the book and ended up being not so bad. Spider also got better in the last 15%. Before that, though, it was a struggle. Spider shows up on Charlie's doorstep and decides he's going to live with him for a while, they clash and Rosie gets caught in the crossfire, Spider screws up Charlie's life, and about 60% through Charlie tries to find a magical way of throwing Spider out since non-magical ways weren't working and that's when things finally get going.
Women in general really get the short end of the stick in this book. There are some old ladies Charlie knew growing up who know things that might help but aren't telling him because reasons, there's Rosie's mother the horrid old crone, there's Rosie herself (who I'll talk about in just a second), and there's Daisy whose main role seems to be "Charlie's happy ending needs a girl and this one is convenient." Those are all the female characters in this book. The older women get some agency (even though it's to either be withholding information for who-knows-why or being a horrible and miserable person), but the two younger women don't. Rosie especially gets screwed over - Spider spends one day pretending to be Charlie, falls for Rosie, and uses his god powers to keep her thinking he's Charlie so he can keep having a relationship with her. There is absolutely rape by deception in this book, even though none of the characters seem to notice or care.
There are a few twists towards the end, and as I'd expect from Neil Gaiman they are pretty good. But they don't cover over the multitude of things I dislike in this book. I really only picked this up because A, my husband owned a copy, and B, I loved American Gods so much I was hoping for more. I did finish it, and the end was good, but I'm not really sure it was worth going through the beginning and the middle to get there.
Moderate: Death of parent, Blood, and Gun violence
Rape by deception