Friday, August 3, 2012

A Love/Hate for American Gods

So, for one of my book clubs, I read the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

This book took me almost a month to read. A MONTH! Books never take me that long!! It was just so boring! I cared about what was going to happen and I did really like some of the characters, but I honestly didn't really get into the book until the last few chapters.

I really liked the theme of religion, especially the old religions, throughout the book. You quickly find out that a lot of the characters in the book are gods and goddesses of pagan religions. There is a big tension between the "gods" of today like television, money, etc, vs the old gods that have very few followers and believers in America.

There is a lot of talk about how people today view religion and god or gods. I found the book very thought provoking and philosophical. I happen to be a pagan, so for me it really made me think about religion a lot and what I believe in and re-evaluate.

I really loved the writing of the book. That is one of my favorite parts of this book. Neil writes very close-handed. By that, I mean that it is like someone at poker. You do not know any more than what the author wants, and he only releases certain details slowly and at the perfect times. You don't know exactly what is going on until the last chapter or two.

There were a couple of really weird things about the writing style though. There would be random parts that had absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the story. They were just other random parts where the story kind of had to with old gods and things, but it was just kind of weird and I think totally unneeded parts that could have been left out of the book.

Have you read this book?? What did you think of it?

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