I would be lying if I said I didn’t force myself to finish this book. I found the first half of the book to be pretty boring. There is something about the main character, Shadow, that kind of makes him dull. He just seems so neutral about everything that happens around him or to him that’s it’s hard to find him interesting. It’s also difficult not questioning how every single god, mythical creature, monster or idol suddenly became literal. Of course, there’s also the fact all of these gods have contrasting backgrounds and views.

On the other hand, the second half of the book was pretty good. As someone mentioned below, it all really did come together (except the god question) and I did enjoy it. I believed that Laura, one of the side characters, was more interesting and had a little more depth than the main character.

Overall, I would say I recommend it based on the second half of the book. However, the whole book wasn’t that great.

Would be my first Neil Gaiman read. :)

Looks promising since i do have an old love for mythology, though it sure looks hefty.

Recommended and lent me by a colleague, let’s see.. :)

This was my second attempt at reading this. This time I won! But only because I so badly wanted to get to the end of it in order to be able to lay claim to a real opinion (in contrast to the measly half-opinion I could offer after drifting off around p200-ish on my first reading).

Really, I think my problems this time round were similar to my first try, albeit mitigated a bit by enjoying the “in-betweeny” stories someone else mentions below, the first of which I hadn’t got to by the time I gave up first time round. His writing style and I don’t seem to gel. And I note this with surprise, because I enjoyed his ‘Sandman’ stuff; and didn’t half-mind ‘Stardust’; but it might be the same problem I had with ‘Neverwhere’ some several years ago, and certainly that made me had to stop ‘Good Omens’ halfway through (though at that point I blamed it on Pratchett’s involvement). Thematically there’s nothing about it that bothers me, and it’s smartly done and all, but I just feel like there’s something missing… depth? I couldn’t get up an interest in Shadow’s character at all. The other characters even less so, but it’s particularly bothersome in a main character, who felt to me all surface and nothing of any interest beneath. Maybe it’s just thinking about it in light of the reviewer below who mentions her “very feminine bookclub” reading this, but it reads to me as more masculine than I’m into in writing style.

The story, hard to get into, all came together in the end, but I just didn’t care by then, just wanted to get to the end and move onto the next thing on my list. I’m sorry to report I really didn’t get much of anything out of this one. Bummer!

It is slow to get into, and complicated and complex and demanding. But then that is what makes it so good. Gaiman plays with themes that Tom Robbins plays with, except he is darker and not fun. Not fun but fascinating.

It is a book that I’ll no doubt read several times to get all the juice and pulp! Highly recommended.

Okay, I’m a Neil Gaiman nut, but it took me ages to read American Gods. And I think the book was overhyped to me. It really didn’t have the same appeal that Sandman did. Maybe part of my problem was listening to the audio version, which did not have great sound quality and the narrator was really awkward. He sounded like he should be reading with a corncob pipe in his mouth, which is fine for characters like Wednesday, Czernobog, and Hinzelmann, but terrible for Laura and makes it sound like your grandfather is reading you a lot of strange sex scenes. Blerg! On top of that, I really didn’t care for Shadow or for the in-between stories about how the gods came to inhabit America. The pace was just too slow and ponderous for me. Perhaps that’s what comes from reading too many comic books? :P

Darkly funny and constantly surprising, this book is a consuming adventure that draws you deeper and deeper into a mysterious world lying just below our own. One of my faves.

I asked a coworker for a sci-fi fantasy suggestion for my open-minded but very feminine book club and she suggest this. I’ve known about Neil Gaiman for a while but I’m not much of a sci-fi reader so I never picked up anything. I didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t sure about the story or the style and all I can say is Cool. This book rocks and Gaiman is an extremely enjoyable writer. I’m not done with it but I will be finishing this and reading more by him. It’s not very sci-fi either, it’s almost anthropological…I hear a lot of Joseph Campbell in this and I like that a lot!

Wow. 5 out of 5. And you know I’m a picky bitch. Hate to cut this short, but I have to go read everything he’s ever written now.