Alana

I read American Gods once and became good at USA geography

Man, I nearly gave this book only 3 stars. I was simply enjoying the fun roadtrip and then visiting Gods and hearing them rant about how hard their lives were, so going through the chapter where Shadow decides he'll sacrifice himself and gets tied up was a drag and totally uninteresting to me. The revelation of his connection to Wednesday amused me less than it should've. Luckily for me, Shadow returns to Lakeside later and uncovers the mystery surrounding the missing kids and that was enough to get me back into the story again.

Oh yeah, when Easter gets introduced I remembered the reason I finally decided to pick this up was because I watched the TV series. They are quite different from each other, but I think I like some things the TV series did more. The TV adaptation made Laura less forgettable and Mad Sweeney, a character that entertains me a lot, shows up a lot more often.

Plus, it has Cool Jesus

Having read (and loved) Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and currently reading (and loving) 1Q84, both by Murakami, I was excited going into this almost completely blind. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed as Murakami's charming writing felt like it had disappeared and all I was given was a story about the main character's miserable life feat. women he had sex with in the most boring and dullest way possible.

If I want to read a japanese author's book about a man's misery, all the women and shitty people he met in his life told in first person ever again, I'd rather reread No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. At least that book evoked some kind of emotion in me.

I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by James Yaegashi, and I recommend it. I chose it because I don't like hearing names getting butchered, but his performance was very pleasant overall. If it weren't for him I might have not finished this book at all.