Jessica
After some reading of other reviews I decided to revise down my star rating. Like I said originally, this is another of those books I would rate 3.5 if that were possible, but it's not, so I have to find some way to lean towards.
Look, I really, REALLY liked the first quarter or so; it was extremely surreal but fascinating. But then the storyline slowed the fuck down and after that it wasn't anywhere near as gripping. It was still interesting, just very slow. To be honest, I found I found the main plot – the conflict between the gods – kind of boring. I vastly preferred the more human subplots, like Shadow's relationship with his wife, or the goings-on in Lakeside. I guess it turned out that the goings-on in Lakeside did pertain to the gods, but only at the very end so I won't count that! As an exploration of “America” and its culture and traditions it was also interesting – I generally liked the flashbacks. I also appreciated that the traditional woman killed in the first 10% of the book to fuel the male protagonist's growth didn't actually go away, although there was still something that vaguely bothered me about the characters. After reading some other reviews, I think it's just that I was never really invested in most of them. Like I said, the human characters were more relatable, but the gods (and Shadow himself a lot of the time) were really detached and blasé about everything, which got boring.
So yeah, I did like this book, but mostly on the strength of the beginning. Admittedly, I was reading the longer “author's cut” rather than the somewhat slimmed-down version that was originally published, and maybe I should have read that one, even if the author himself prefers it longer. I don't know what parts were actually cut out in the original edition, so I don't know! But I do suspect that it might have progressed a bit faster, and been a bit more compelling to read.
After some reading of other reviews I decided to revise down my star rating. Like I said originally, this is another of those books I would rate 3.5 if that were possible, but it's not, so I have to find some way to lean towards.
Look, I really, REALLY liked the first quarter or so; it was extremely surreal but fascinating. But then the storyline slowed the fuck down and after that it wasn't anywhere near as gripping. It was still interesting, just very slow. To be honest, I found I found the main plot – the conflict between the gods – kind of boring. I vastly preferred the more human subplots, like Shadow's relationship with his wife, or the goings-on in Lakeside. I guess it turned out that the goings-on in Lakeside did pertain to the gods, but only at the very end so I won't count that! As an exploration of “America” and its culture and traditions it was also interesting – I generally liked the flashbacks. I also appreciated that the traditional woman killed in the first 10% of the book to fuel the male protagonist's growth didn't actually go away, although there was still something that vaguely bothered me about the characters. After reading some other reviews, I think it's just that I was never really invested in most of them. Like I said, the human characters were more relatable, but the gods (and Shadow himself a lot of the time) were really detached and blasé about everything, which got boring.
So yeah, I did like this book, but mostly on the strength of the beginning. Admittedly, I was reading the longer “author's cut” rather than the somewhat slimmed-down version that was originally published, and maybe I should have read that one, even if the author himself prefers it longer. I don't know what parts were actually cut out in the original edition, so I don't know! But I do suspect that it might have progressed a bit faster, and been a bit more compelling to read.