Synopsis from Goodreads: Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.
My Thoughts: This was one of the first of what my friend dubbed ‘grown up’ books I’ve read on my own accord. A sucker for mythology, I was really excited to delve into the world Neil Gaiman created. Though I did enjoy the book overall, I felt like it took forever for the plot to even really begin, with things really getting interesting for me between a quarter and half way through the four hundred-some page book.
What I really, really liked about the book was the big idea underlying the whole thing, with the survival on the gods depending on people’s belief in them, and that when their worshipers moved to new lands (i.e. America), the gods went with them, only to be forgotten with the passage of time and growth of a new age. Though the plot is way more complicated than that, I just thought it was an interesting concept. I also like that, like America, the gods featured in the book were a melting pot, with myths of Irish, African, Indian, and Slavic origin (and more) all coming together in a land that’s “bad for gods”.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mythology. Though it’s not blatant in the beginning, I soon picked up on the mythological nuances that fill the pages of Gaiman’s novel. There are very few times that the gods are actually recognized for what they are, and even less are the times that their stories are explained. I actually spent a lot of times researching the background of the characters in the book, gaining knowledge about mythologies I had not previously been aware of.
Overall, I really enjoyed the novel and the world it created for me, and I hope if you read it, you enjoy it too!
The Girl With the Words 