Neil Gaiman, American Gods (2001)

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Published: 2001
Acquired: March 2008
Read: August 2025

Who in the year 2025 goes, Man, I'm finally going to try out some Neil Gaiman? This is the moment to do it! 

Me, apparently. As always, the issue is that I've had the book for quite a long time, since 2008, but it only just surfaced to the top of my reading list. It's funny, it was seven years old when I got it; it took me seventeen years to get around to reading it.

So how was it? Well, like a lot of Neil Gaiman that I've read, I enjoyed the premise, I liked the writing itself, there were a lot of interesting scenes, the characters were largely interesting, but a certain point I felt like the book was meandering somewhere and I didn't really know where or why. What, actually, was at stake? Once the climax came along, I got a bit lost as to why anyone was doing anything in particular. It reminded me of Stardust, in that the idea of the book ended up being more enjoyable than the actuality of it.

(For completion's sake, I should note the book won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2002, meaning that by reading it now, I have reduced the span of my project to read all Hugo-winning novels I haven't previously read by one year. I would have otherwise reached it in 2042!)