First Lines: American Gods (reread)

When I first read American Gods in 2010, I didn’t have much to say about it. Now, after having been triggered to revisit it two times in rapid succession, and well before the television series is finished, I went ahead and re-read it.

American Gods is still the story of what Shadow did after he got out of prison. It’s a big story, and it goes a bit like this: people came to the New World from the Old Countries, and they brought their gods with them. But, alas! America turned out to be not so great for Gods, actually. People stopped believing in them, and they withered, and got replaced by the new kids — those of technology and progress. And now, a storm is coming and these factions are about to clash. Mr. Wednesday tries to rally the Gods into forming an united front, and recruits Shadow to be his assistant/driver/bodyguard. There are, of course, complications.

As it turns out, I still don’t have a lot to say about this book. It’s a great story — better than I remembered — but I don’t feel I have the correct words at my fingertips to describe what makes it great. It is a little bit of everything, and it’s like so many other things, and yet, it is completely like anything else at all. I guess it’s one of those books you’ll have to read for yourselves.

Book read
Neil Gaiman — American Gods
First line
Shadow had done three years in prison.