Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition by Neil Gaiman

44 reviews

eddiesourboy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Neil Gaimen has really great prose and dialogue, but my god does he use those abilities for evil sometimes. Fascinating book. Incredibly long.

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sreddous's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is a tricky one. I actually remember saying out loud to friends as I was reading this, “I don’t think there’s a whole ton of description, and usually I get annoyed if books expect me to ‘do too much of the work’ – yet I can totally imagine everything that’s happening here.” Neil Gaiman’s writing and dialogue are so good that even though this book is LONG and the pacing is often slow and hard to follow, it was so easy to “see the crazy stuff that was happening through Shadow’s eyes” that I felt totally immersed pretty much the whole time. 

I think it’s a unique balance – Shadow doesn’t have a “super strong personality” as a POV character, which could be annoying...but, no, instead, the way I interpreted it, it just made it easy to see him as someone who’s, like, “yup, the gods sure are up to some wacky things, aren’t they?” and… yeah, I’m along for the ride too, what will these wacky gods cook up next??

So that’s why I call this book a five-star experience for me. It felt…strangely realistic and calming!

I think if there are any things I wished could have more space instead of maybe some of the slower plot points, it’s that I wish we had more locations visited in the USA – we spend a whole lot of time in the Midwest, and that’s fine, but it’s such a big country with different pockets of immigrants bringing different gods to different areas, it would have been fun to discover tiny little towns in other places too.

I also found myself asking questions like, “well, the USA isn’t the only capitalist/hyper-modern/greedy country with a large immigrant population – did Greek immigrants bring versions of their gods to Australia, so there are Greek gods in Greece, the USA, and Australia?” And we get a glimpse of that formula being possible when Shadow is in Iceland, so I’m glad to have that touched on, even though the book does indeed focus on, well, the American Gods and how they behave in the USA specifically. So it’s fine.

This is a tricky, complicated topic with tricky, complicated metaphors. But, it sure did leave me thinking and re-imagining scenes.

Content warnings: graphic descriptions of animal abuse and death, sex-related violence, gore

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scytheria's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • 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


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zumakroom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced
  • 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? No

4.75


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gracklewarp's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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szote's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0


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fayeferre's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75


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leapyear_reader's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

It feels as if i have taken an extraordinary roadtrip through Gaiman’s inner woorkings of his imagination and source of creativity. A book filled with complex, layered characters, each compelling enough to be a protogonist, yet Gaiman slices through tales and trips like butter on pancakes served in a motel diner.

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navayiota's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book.. wow. When I started it, I didn't expect to fall in love with it as much as I did. This story is definitely going to stick around in my mind for a while, especially the next few days, since I can't stop thinking about it or bring myself to start another book. Maybe Norse Mythology. Wednesday was one of the best parts of the book, and I know it's what he's most interested and knowledgeable in. 

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corriejn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

4.5

I thought most of this book was great, but certain sections (no spoilers) dragged out far too long. I did listen to the ~12k words longer, original author's cut edition, so maybe those were some of the sections that were cut down a good bit for the original publishing.

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