***SPOILERS HIDDEN***

Update: September 9, 2024. Neil Gaiman accused of sexual assault and abuse: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/08/01/exclusive-two-more-women-accuse-neil-ga...

American Gods is almost impossible to describe or summarize. It's a commentary told through a fairly balanced mix of fantasy, mystery, and even ghost story, but it also contains other, harder-to-classify, complex elements. Author Neil Gaiman included a few multi-layered subplots within the main plot, crafted an extensive cast of distinctive characters, and sprinkled various mythic traditions throughout. His book is atmospheric and transportive. Reading it is like taking a dizzying trip around the world in a single week.

The characters, main and secondary alike, electrify each scene. Interestingly, the countless colorful secondary characters exit scenes almost as quickly as they enter them, yet somehow this works well.

Unfortunately, what stalls American Gods is its mystery component. Too little is explained for too long. Throughout the story enigmatic characters speak to the character of Shadow in riddles and intimations. The main characters spend a large amount of time traveling from one place to another, meeting new, quirky characters saying cryptic things. Gaiman tried too hard to be complex and deep, and symbolism is heavy-handed in parts.

Surprisingly, and disappointingly, the part of the book that should be the most gripping —the decisive battle between the gods— isn't. Not only does this part drag endlessly, and with boring detail, but it's the very definition of anti-climax. The scene is visually stunning, punctuated by thunder, blinding bolts of lightning, and powerful swooping birds, but there's no drama or suspense in the battle itself, in what readers had been promised—for several hundred pages—would be a savage, frightening clash between the gods.

On the technical level American Gods would have benefited from thoughtful organization and some paring down. The book also presents two historic back stories that, although riveting and expertly told, differ dramatically in tone and subject from the main narrative. Gaiman had so many ideas he insisted on cramming into one book—hence a historic slave story in the middle of a fantasy-mystery-ghost story-commentary-whathaveyou. Near the end he even introduced a short murder-mystery subplot with Shadow out-of-the-blue playing detective and hero. Although suspenseful and fun to read, this twisty subplot presents another change in tone that throws things out of whack and just doesn’t fit. Clearly Gaiman is gifted. His ability to write many different kinds of stories in different tones and with memorable characters is proof. Simply put, though, American Gods wanders all over the place because he didn't know when to rein it in. ( )

Ik heb 'm dan ook (eindelijk) eens gelezen en ik vond het niet echt een geweldig boek. Het duurde heel lang voordat ik een beetje gevoel kreeg waar het allemaal heen moest en het bleef voornamelijk erg vaag. Ik vond de hoofdpersoon maar vlak en dat maakte dat het niet zo interessant was allemaal. ( )

I really don't know what to say about this book other than what a huge disappointment it was. There is such a strong premise and story, but it gets lost in all of the utterly unlikable characters and meandering story with only a hint of a purpose. I mean, I GET IT, I just don't think it was done very well.

Shadow, the main character, is one of the worst flat cardboard-cutout characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading about. His actions don't make sense, his reactions don't make sense, nothing about him is interesting, etc.

Also, where is the tension? There is almost no tension in the entire novel and it just wanders around like a sappy memoir peppered with curse words and vulgar references to sex or other body parts. Sorry, but it just doesn't cut it.

I am still shocked that this was a Hugo award (among others). I read Neverwhere and enjoyed it quite a bit, but this was so far in the other direction that I may never read another Gaiman novel again. ( )

I am loving this book. Not as fun as "Good Omens," but as creative and fascinating. (Later) I did like this book. It didn't transport me the way Neverwhere did, but the ideas presented were very compelling. I found, at the end, that there was some symbolism that I sensed but was just beyond my grasp. Maybe some day I'll go looking for someone's interpretation.

Worth reading, though. ( )

4 1/2 stars ( )

While I enjoyed this book, I have no interest in reading any more in the series. #QUITSERIES ( )

I re-read this in anticipation of the TV series, and because, frankly, I didn't remember much of anything of it from my first reading 15 years ago. It was a good read on the Kindle for a couple plane rides.

I'm willing to think this is my fault, but I found it to be largely confusing. The climactic actions in the second half mystified me. The characters and scenes were vivid and well drawn, it was the story that failed me. I hope the TV show clears it up. ( )

I loved the way that gods from various pantheons as well as concepts not normally thought of as people or gods are depicted in this book. ( )

I finally read/listened to this one (via audiobook) I enjoyed it but will prob actually read it bc I fell like I miss d out on some of the finer details ( )

Deuses americanos é, acima de tudo, um livro estranho. E foi essa estranheza que tornou o romance de Neil Gaiman, publicado pela primeira vez em 2001, um clássico imediato. Nesta nova edição, preferida do autor, o leitor encontrará capítulos revistos e ampliados, artigos, uma entrevista com Gaiman e um inspirado texto de introdução.

A saga de Deuses americanos é contada ao longo da jornada de Shadow Moon, um ex-presidiário de trinta e poucos anos que acabou de ser libertado e cujo único objetivo é voltar para casa e para a esposa, Laura. Os planos de Shadow se transformam em poeira quando ele descobre que Laura morreu em um acidente de carro. Sem lar, sem emprego e sem rumo, ele conhece Wednesday, um homem de olhar enigmático que está sempre com um sorriso no rosto, embora pareça nunca achar graça de nada.

Depois de apostas, brigas e um pouco de hidromel, Shadow aceita trabalhar para Wednesday e embarca em uma viagem tumultuada e reveladora por cidades inusitadas dos Estados Unidos, um país tão estranho para Shadow quanto para Gaiman. É nesses encontros e desencontros que o protagonista se depara com os deuses — os antigos (que chegaram ao Novo Mundo junto dos imigrantes) e os modernos (o dinheiro, a televisão, a tecnologia, as drogas) —, que estão se preparando para uma guerra que ninguém viu, mas que já começou. O motivo? O poder de não ser esquecido.

O que Gaiman constrói em Deuses americanos é um amálgama de múltiplas referências, uma mistura de road trip, fantasia e mistério — um exemplo máximo da versatilidade e da prosa lúdica e ao mesmo tempo cortante de Neil Gaiman, que, ao falar sobre deuses, fala sobre todos nós.

Juntos, os livros de Neil Gaiman lançados pela Intrínseca já venderam mais de 100 mil exemplares.

“Original, arrebatador e infinitamente criativo.”George R. R. Martin

“Mistério, sátira, sexo, horror, poesia — Deuses americanos tem todos esses elementos, que vão fazer com que os leitores não queiram desgrudar do livro.”The Washington Post

I liked this book a lot. The pacing is super interesting and took a little while to get used to. Gaiman is super vague about Shadow and his past and never really explains it, though it becomes irrelevant pretty quick with the exception of his wife. The modernized ideas of gods is well executed, I think, though it opens the door for all kinds of interpretations and fan fic. ( )

Pazzesco :) da leggere obbligatoriamente

Got about 80 pages in before I tossed it. Too vulgar for my tastes. I also think [a:Jim Butcher|10746|Jim Butcher|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1205261964p2/10746.jpg] does the whole ancient gods/spirits in the modern world thing better. ( )

I read American Gods when it first came out, some twenty years ago, and enjoyed it then, although I felt like quite a bit of it went over my head--perhaps because I read too fast? Reading it again some twenty years later, and reading Gaiman's preferred version that's some 12k longer than the original, I still suspect that many little details slipped by me, but I loved the journey of revisiting this book and these characters. There's something about this easy-going fantasy, traveling over endless territory and through so many gods' worlds, that is simply entrancing.

I'm not sure what genre it is, or why it is so hypnotic as it is, or even why I enjoy it so much, but I'll always recommend it. ( )

Beautiful edition of one of my favorite books. ( )

Mythology

I am admittedly not the biggest fan of science fiction/fantasy, although there have been some standouts that I have read in these genres; this imaginative, suspenseful novel was close to the top of the heap for me, with its puns, jokes, mythology, and lots of engaging wordplay and brilliant wordsmithing. I both listened to the audio (well done by George Guidall) and read the book, which I have had for years but never got around to reading. Shadow, the novel’s protagonist, is released a few weeks early from a three-year prison sentence when his wife, Laura, is killed in a car accident under compromising circumstances. He keeps encountering a gentlemen who offers him a job as his bodyguard. It is an offer Shadow cannot refuse; mayhem ensues. Old-fashioned mythology meets gritty America. ( )

Not for me

(2001)(audio) Fantasy about a man's odyssey trying to find himself and the meaning of his life/death. Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not.

Just re-read (actually, listened to) American Gods for the first time since it was originally published. It was better than I remembered, so I have raised my rating. I can confidently recommend the full-cast recording of the audiobook. ( )

I am sorry to say that I only read this book because it was made a show on Starz. Sometimes books made to tv shows turns out well and sometimes its not. The show has two more episodes but I love the book. I should not have waited. I inhaled this book in 4 days. I am a huge fan of Mythology, The amount of lore in this book, and how it's handled is fantastic.The way the story is narrated in particular, makes the reader feel as if events are being guided by some higher power like fate, though it's obviously the author, and this lends itself greatly to the classical fantasy feel of the book.
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In my old age, I'm not really interested in fantasy novels that aren't fun. I think I understand why so many people like American Gods, but it was a bit of a slog for me to get through because it was so dark and the main character was so bland and serious. It's hot outside and I was hoping it would be lighter than it was instead of so much pain and misery.

I think I enjoyed the Lakeside subplot much more than the god-war main plot. I also liked all of the interludes about how some of the gods came to America. But I was a little annoyed that almost none of the gods were Greek or Roman, which are the gods I know a little bit about. Most of the gods in the book, I think, were Norse. There was a sprinkling of Egyptian, African, Native American, Indian, European, and Asian gods, but I don't see how Gaiman rationalized leaving out Zeus & company. If this review gets read by a fan(atic), I'm sure I'll have it explained to me in the comments. ( )

Wanted to read this before the tv series. having now read and seen both i can say i prefer the book
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I love this book. It remains in my top ten. This is my third read and it hasn't aged a bit. ( )

Confusing as hell, but also one helluva ride. There will be many, many times you will want to give up on this book.Trust me. Don't. ( )