Rating: 
Summary: Strange, but quite interesting
Review: This book seems to have everything: old "gods" fighting new "gods", the dead walking, animals that talk, temporal displacement, eerie dreams, etc.. It sounds all quite confusing, and in the hands of a writer with a lesser talent, it certainly could be. This author, however, takes firm hold of his plot, and moves it along swiftly. It's a tale that reveals the fate of "gods" whose followers stop believing in them. They are forgotten, but they don't just disappear. They take mundane jobs, becoming laborers, taxi drivers, grifters, petty thieves, etc.. Then new "gods" come along displacing them, and these new "gods" want the old ones to just go away. The plot is pretty straightforward, although at times it doesn't appear that way. The author always knows where he is going, and doesn't get lost along the way. The writing is of high quality, and the character development, even the relatively minor ones, is first rate. It's a book the reader will either instantly like, or hate. I liked it, and recommend it highly.
Rating: 
Summary: oh god
Review: This is the first book I've read by Gaiman, and I don't intend to read another. I found this book to be boring, implausible, and mind-numbingly stupid. First of all, the so-called 'gods' have no godlike powers. They are just a bunch of senile old people who sit around in their depends eating boiled cabbage and complaining that nobody cares about them. Well, you won't care about them either. The main character, Shadow, doesn't care about anything. Doesn't care whether he lives or dies, and wouldn't matter if he did because this is a fantasy story where people can die and come back to life whenever it's convienient. Gaiman isn't American, and he doesn't know jack about America. Maybe he drove through Florida once and never left the highway except to stop for gas and cigarettes. He seems oblivious to the fact that this is a country that believes in God with a capital 'G', something that never comes up in this lame story.
In a world where three headed gorgons ride flaming monkeys, I guess anything could happen. Not much does in this overblown heap of dung. 500 pages of sitting around, having dinner with your grandparents waiting for the 'clash of the gods', just to have it end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to waste anymore of our time. Don't waste your time on this award-winning stinker like I did. Don't waste your time reading any more reviews. Go visit grandma, go make some cheese fondue, just don't read this book.
American Gods gets one star, and that's only because it provided me with plenty of toilet paper.
Rating:
Summary: A great read.
Review: This has been one of the most pleasurable reads I've had in a while. Gaiman paints the charactors vividly in your mind and give's great detail without clouding up the book with too much. Besides being entertaining the book does actually have some great morals that every American seems oblivious to. If you like
Palahniuk and King, Gaiman has a style that combines the two and has so much more.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting read
Review: Some years ago, I read a book called "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It was a truly funny book about angels, archangels, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and one very confused Anti-Christ. Since then, I've read just about everything Pratchett has available in the US, but I'd never read another Gaiman book. After reading the great reviews, I figured "American Gods" should be the one.It's obvious Pratchett and Gaiman have had some major philosophical discussions (perhaps over a pint or two). The first Pratchett book I read was "Small Gods". The premise was that gods die or disappear if people no longer believe in them. Gaiman's book explores the same theme, but on a grander scale. It felt somewhat like reading Stephen King's "The Stand" - if you've read both, you'll know why I think so - they're epic adventures including journeys and battles between two mythical forces. Both were interesting reads. Gaiman's obviously done his research on Norse and Egyptian mythology and voudon. You can't help but be interested in a book with characters like Odin, Loki, Anubis and Bast. It also has leprechauns, piskies, and one very determined zombie. For some reason, a bumper-sticker thought kept popping in my head as I read this book: Gods Are People Too.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to care about
Review: American Gods has an imaginative premise and the writing is fairly good, and I have given it points on that aspect, however one must be well versed in suspension of disbelief in that the characters have little resemblance to real people and the convoluted murkiness of plot requires great perseverance to achieve much reward. While you may gather this sort of story is not my usual cup of tea, I have had others whose opinions I value tell me they enjoyed it immensely, and therefore perused it. I find it always difficult to remain objective when the object of discussion, a book or movie, is experienced in a subjective fashion. My antipathy to this particular novel was engendered rather soon by the protagonist's depiction as an ex-con who seemed emotionally blocked in certain areas and fixated in others, yet for all his pragmatic experiences in prison and solid grounding in reality, he accepted with equanimity the most bizarre turn of events that defied all logic, even if couched in a Lord of the Rings setting. I realize this is a fantasy story, but still, when dealing with humans, one must assume there is such a thing as a normal reaction response to outrageous incidents. Shadow's lack of normal reactions seemed to remove him from concern by the reader, in other words, you just don't care what happens to him. And, while I can accept the conceptual fantasy idea of ancient Gods being worshiped in olden times and other lands and actually living among humans, I find it difficult to rationalize them working in, say, a slaugterhouse stunning cattle or running cheap cons to make a living. Either you are a God or you aren't, and if you are, you should be able to avoid such lowly endeavors no matter how many people still believe you exist, otherwise you're just another mundane human with delusions of grandeur. The powers they retained, while minor, still should have enabled them to move out of the slums. And the new breed, hip-hoppers with a bit of magic, seemed a weak effort. But again, I am not a fan of overly-complicated plots that seem to go nowhere nor accomplish much for the majority of the book, no matter how unique the concept or how well they are written. I feel characters should be somewhat realistic so the reader can relate to them in some small manner.
However, that said, if you enjoyed King's Dark Tower books, or even The Stand, then you might also enjoy this novel as it follows the general form quite well, a basic good versus evil premise complete with outrageous and eccentric players as seen through a veil of fog that clouds one's ability to make sense of things -as though Lamont Cranston was hiding behind your Lazy Boy as you read. I occasionally felt somewhat like I had wandered into the Winchester House and climbed a series of stairways that ended nowhere, feeling a momentary pang of regret that Ray Bradbury and Poul Anderson aren't still producing the volumes of quality fantasy they once did.
-Barker Reviews
Rating:
Summary: Identifiable Morality
Review: This is a great work, much like early Stephen King, or Terry Pratchett, or previous Gaiman works. But it is flawed in a way common to nearly every novel of this sort. It confuses the moral landscape early on, so that you aren't really sure whether the protagonist is fighting on the right side, and then it turns the tables, removing most of the ambiguity, and leaving us with yet another flawed-but-basically-good leading man. A literary work of this type yearns to be freed from this cliché, and for a while I thought Gaiman had it in him. I can only hope that he's not finished yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, I guess I don't get it...
Review: Like the other reviewer who has read since he was 5, I've been reading a long time. I bought this book at the airport, having forgotten to bring a book. I'll keep this short. If you enjoy fantasy and mythology, read this book. If you want to be scared or kept on the edge of your seat, find something else. I didn't find this book to be at all suspenseful, it was quite predictable. I got the whole "plot twist" quite soon. It wasn't the worst book I'd ever picked up but it wasn't the best either. I have read books that I didn't want to put down, Boris Starling's "Messiah" and Caleb Carrs "The Alienist" come to mind, however, this wasn't one of those. Don't believe the hype, this book isn't going to renew your hopes for non-fiction.
Rating:
Summary: He knows his stuff
Review: Neil Gaiman is someone who I read as a novelist, I've yet to go for his comic work, though I read illustrated work, so it's not unusual for me to pick up this book. Shadopw, the protagonist of this book is many things-----first we suspect that he is the mbodiment of a God as a lot of the main characters in this book are. If he is the son of Odin, then is he Thor?
Or is he just a man sired by a God and brought to the brink of reality as one form of God fights others?
A variety of Gods make appearances here as a form of Armageddon approaches. I wish I could say that this novel had a strong central point but it spins around this coming war and how to avert it with Shadow's dead wife walking around. Shadow eventually sacrifices himself as a vigil to Odin-----all of this occuring with the 20th century.
What works in this novel?
The origin/genesis of the gods on American soil and their human incarnations and how Shadow sees glimpses of their power.
What doesn't work?
At the end of this novel you realize Gaiman has done a lot of setting up, a lot of creation of mythos into his own multi-Godded world but to what end?
Gods are everywhere, everyone, which is a terrific concept, strong and I believe to some degree the truth of existence, but the war/commentary on God in America is rather empty by the end. The book goes nowhere. Yes, Shadow finds the light within, finds purpose, reason to be but we never think that the world is in any danger. Perhaps this is because teh opposing Gods are technology, TV, the Internet. This book should've been expanded, travelled more. Perhaps a trilogy, there's a lot to be mined here, relationships to be explored. But in one book it feels like a prelude and smacks of being cut short too quickly.
Rating:
Summary: Good, But Too Long
Review: A friend told me that this book was the best thing he had ever read in his life. I don't know about that, but its certainly worth a try, especially if you are a Neil Gaiman fan. The story is about a looming war between the old Gods from Norse, Roman, Indian, Middle Eastern and other mythologies and the gods of today (the internet, television, etc). The book spends too much time following the main characters while they wander around the US but even that has its moments. There are some genuinly funny situations and some interesting characters. An interesting thing about this book is that it mixes mythologies. This, no doubt, comes because of Gaiman's background as a comic book writer. That art form, as you are probably aware, mixes the most absurdly different characters and gets away with it. Similarly, in this book you have a Norse God meeting Eastern European gods and so on. The best parts of the book are teh short stories that set teh background for the main plot. They follow how various gods managed to reach America. Some of them are excellent taken as short stories. Overall, this book could have been better, but its still worth picking up.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome Originality in a Sea of Sameness
Review: American Gods is a wholly original novel, and one of the best I've read in a long time. The story had me hooked from page two, and was quite unpredictable. This one requires you to think a bit, which is fine by me. The book has depth. Shadow is a splendid character, and has some pretty intense demons. After reading the also excellent Neverwhere, I still believe Gaiman has yet to hit his peak. He's going to be great.
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