Despite the title, or perhaps because of it, the 'gods' in this story are not truly American, nor are they truly gods, and they remain elusive, peripherally seen beings for the first half of the book. That's because the story is not their story. It's the story of an ex-convict named Shadow, a brooding, guilt-ridden man that we meet on the day of his parole. He meets a mysterious stranger and his life takes a series of odder and odder turns that he seems to take in stride.

He discovers that the mysterious stranger and the even more mysterious folk to which the stranger introduces him are all incarnations of the gods brought to the New World by various immigrants. Now trapped on this side of the ocean, living unrecognized on the edges of society, they are not as powerful as their Old World counterparts and their existence is increasingly threatened by the new gods of the modern age. They are ready to fight back and Shadow has been recruited as part of their plan.

It is a credit to Mr. Gaiman's authorly skills that he is able to tread the line of realism and fantasy so fascinatingly for almost 600 pages. He creates an entirely believable unbelievable world for the characters to inhabit and crafts a set of rich characters steeped in folklore, yet not requiring a graduate degree in mythology to decipher. It's a story. And it's well done. ( )

This is an excellent novel. It's Gaiman doing what he does best: writing about gods and beliefs and the mythos that surrounds them.

The story follows Shadow, an inmate in prison who wants nothing more than to get out and move on with his life. However, as the gods might have it, they have bigger plans for Shadow. He ends up being recruited by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and begins a journey of legends.

The amount of effort and research that Gaiman must have put in to get the story right for all the gods is amazing. There were many that I didn't recognize and I wasn't sure if I had just never heard of them before or if they were made up for the book. Either way, the characters were extremely enjoyable. Overall the book also makes you think to a degree about what God or gods that you worship. Roman gods would demand sacrificing an animal which we can look at as being barbaric but today's gods of Television, Internet, Getting Ahead all demand sacrificing your mind, your interpersonal skills or your personal life. Who's to say which is better? Plus the core of the novel is very true: Americans are a fickle bunch and we'll quickly move away from old gods and new gods in favor of even newer gods. ( )

Neil Gaiman is hit or miss with me, and this was a definite miss. It was entirely too long for the amount of stuff that happens (the main character spends the first half of the book driving around the USA, talking to random people and nothing happens and it's boring), and it feels like Gaiman used this book to show how much he paid attention in English class when world mythology was being covered. ( )

I have put off reading this book due to its frequent tagging as horror, a genre that I dislike. While there were some horrible scenes, it turned out that it wasn't what I think of as 'horror' or perhaps my sense of the genre is too influenced by the movies.

Anyway, I found the book strange and interesting. I have come across the concept that gods are created and fed by people's emotions before or I might have given this 4.5* ( )

Sprawling and epic. A brilliant work ( )