The Book: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

The Story: Life has not exactly treated Shadow well.  He has been in prison for a few years, just pining after his wife.  A couple of days before he gets out, she dies in this kind of freak accident.  Not knowing what else to do, Shadow heads home.  On his way, he encounters Mr. Wednesday.  He is this strange guy who claims to have a job for Shadow.  Shadow takes it, just to sort of kill time until he figures his life back out.

After meeting a cast of exotic characters, Shadow ends up in this “perfect” small town, where a mysterious disappearance happens each winter.  Meanwhile, he is being pursued by a group who doesn’t have his best interest at heart and he is left to mourn his wife, solve the town’s mystery and figure out where he stands in the battle of the American Gods.

What I Thought: How to lose blog readers: Admit that this popular-to-the-max Gaiman didn’t do it for you.  How to keep blog readers: Write honest reviews.  Hmmm. The conundrum.

Seriously though, I went into this with way high hopes.  Not only do I have scores of friends who gush about Neil Gaiman to an embarrassing degree, but I had just read this article written by Patrick Rothfuss about how amazing American Gods is.  I have a pretty serious writer-crush on Patrick Rothfuss and figured if he liked it, I would too.

I didn’t.

I didn’t hate it.  I just didn’t like it.  It took me a long time to get into and I enjoyed maybe 100 pages, then the end was just strange and confusing and I was left with this really “blah” feeling.

I guess part of it was that I felt like Neil Gaiman was trying to make some kind of point.  Maybe it was about how Americans don’t worship traditional Gods any more, but instead worship technology and new stuff?  And I don’t want to spoil anything, but with how the story kind of came together in the end, that doesn’t play out exactly.  It also seemed like he was trying to say that all of the “gods” that we worship are just trying to trick us and… I don’t know.  I didn’t feel like he took that idea very far.  What I’m trying to say is that the book seemed preachy but didn’t make a point.  That bothered me.

I thought that all the trippy scenes/weird names/long winded stories could have pretty much been cut out.  The fact that I now read in sporadic little chunks instead of 100 good pages at a time may have really messed this book up for me.  There were just large parts that just left me scratching my head. I literally didn’t know what was going on sometimes.

I think that it probably boils down to this: I’m not a big fan of sci-fi or fantasy.  I hardly ever read it, and when I do, I usually walk away kind of annoyed.  Here is a secret: I didn’t even particularly enjoy Lord of the Rings. So there ya go.  If you love that kind of stuff, I’m sure that this will just get you all excited.  For me? Not so much.

I feel like Debbie Downer. Here’s what I liked:  I loved the scenes with his wife and the fact that their love transcended death, I loved the whole “mystery in the small town” storyline and wish that it had taken up even more of the book, and I loved the prose.  It was understated but well done, if you know what I mean.  He used simple words and short sentences to create really lyrical prose and that is not easy to do.  I also thought that the dialogue was well done.  It was totally believable and if anything this is what stood out to me.  I was impressed.

So there ya go, I didn’t hate this. I really didn’t.  But it was a chore to read and I didn’t get to the end and feel like I had just read something great.  I felt like I had just read something that was trying way too hard to be great. Bleh.

Conclusion: If you are a sci-fi reader, I’m sure you’ve already read this.  If you’re not, I can’t say that I recommend it.

The Book: Mister Monday: The Keys to the Kingdom #1, by Garth Nix

The Story: The main character of this book, Arthur, suffers a should-be fatal asthma attack and is visited by some creepy dudes who babble off some crazy stuff and then give him a book and a “key” that looks like the minute hand to a clock.  He ends up in the hospital and recovers quickly.

On his way home, he sees this new “house” in his development that is huge and crazy and no one else can see it.  Of course, the book that he was given by the creepy dudes shows him how to get in. When he gets “visited” at school by some more creepy guys who start a fire and plague in his town, Arthur figures that he should head to that new crazy house and try to figure out what is going on.

So, he goes and it turns out to be this whole wild city. He finds out that by having that minute hand, he has a lot of power within the city.  To stop all the bad stuff that is happening, he’s told that he has to get the hour hand that matches the minute hand he has.  A fun little quest begins.

What I Thought: Let me preface this by saying that I was buying some Hunger Games/Catching Fire goodies at the bookstore and the guy who was checking me out asked me if I liked that “type” of book, by which I kind of took to mean dystopian books- which I love.  Of course I said yes.  He said that the best series being written like this right now was the Keys to the Kingdom series. I immediately went home and requested it from the library, knowing almost nothing about it.

Maybe it was that I was expecting something like Hunger Games/Catching Fire, which I thought was incredible.   I cannot even comprehend where the comparison came from.  I’m not entirely sure, now, what he meant by “that type of book.” Maybe just YA fantasy? Which I’m not into at all. So maybe it was just that my expectations were just off.

This was not great.  I would be struggling to call it good. I guess that the premise has promise, but the follow through was cringe-worthy.  The writing was clunky and the dialogue was all the way unbelievable. I realize that it was science fiction, but the world just seemed so… fake. Even the “real” part of the world.  All of it.  The “rules” that existed seemed arbitrary and I never found myself in suspense at all. It was just silly.

I kind of kept thinking that it was going to come to life at some point and that something amazing was going to happen. No such luck.

Conclusion: Meh.  There are so many better YA books out there right now.  I wouldn’t waste my time on this.  I will not be continuing on with this series. And if you’re a bookstore worker or librarian, don’t compare mediocre books to great ones.  It’s not fair to the mediocre ones.

The Book: Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton

The Story: I probably don’t have to explain this one too much…

A crazy old guy decides to clone dinosaurs and put them on an island as an amusement park.  They are all girl-dinos and they are pretty sure that they have control over the whole situation.  A couple of dinosaur scientists, a lawyer, two kids and a mathematician head to the island to check it out.

Quickly the scientists and the mathematician figure out that they are not, in fact, all girl-dinos and that they are breeding. A stingy computer guy turns everything off so he can steal some embryos.  So the dinos are kinda on their own.

All hell breaks loose.

What I Thought: I remember reading this while I was in middle school and just absolutely loving it. I’m not sure what prompted me to pick it up again- I just saw it at the thrift store and got nostalgic.

I have to say, I really liked it again.  I was less impressed with the writing, but the story still really compelled me.  I liked how Michael Crichton “talked shop” a lot so that we’d know what was happening and why.  I don’t  know if this book was actually well researched or if he is just a good b.s.er, but either way it worked for me.

I do usually tend to lean toward character-driven books, and this is not that in the slightest.  The characters have no story, very little personality, and not much to distinguish them from each other. The story is very heavily plot driven, but I was fine with that.  It moved along quickly and kept me reading, so I can’t complain.

Not sure what year this book was written, I guess around the mid-ninties, but I couldn’t quit thinking about how a high-speed internet connection and cell phones would have changed this storyline.

Conclusion: A fun, quick read.  And as a bonus it made my husband so happy that I was reading this because now I’ll want to watch the movie.  It is his favorite of all time. So funny.