Favorite Book and 10 Reasons Why People Should Read It.
I have a lot of favourite books and series making this question near impossible to answer.
The book that I finally settled on was this:
During my final year of high school I went on a class trip to New York City. One of my friends raved about this book and claimed that it had everything I would be interested in. The day after we arrived home he shoved a well worn paperback copy into my hands and ordered me to read it.
He was right, and I absolutely adored the book.
Ten Reasons Why You Should Read American Gods
- Mythology – American Gods is a love letter to World Mythology. Throughout his journey the main character Shadow encounters Gods and Goddesses from around the world. American Gods does not favour one mythology or belief system over another, instead it argues that all exist at once and all decay at once. This same idea is explored in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. There is also an episode of Supernatural in season five (Hammer of the Gods) which I almost think was based off of American Gods. But that’s just a theory.
- It makes you think – American Gods was one of the first books that actually made me realize that books can actually be more than mindless entertainment. This was one of the first books that actually struck a chord with me. The next book to do something anywhere near similar was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
- It serves as a good introduction to Neil Gaiman’s work – Gaiman finds magic in everything and darkness… buckets of darkly interesting goodness.
- The center of the plot is not a romance – Given the flood of paranormal romances on the market these days it’s kind of nice to read something that is focused on something else other than getting character A together with character B
- A Great Twist – I don’t want to give much information here and ruin the book for future readers. All I can say is I groaned.
- The God Name Game – Also, more spoilers but it’ll make sense when you read it.
- The Humour – American Gods has a wry sense of humour that manages to bring comfort to even the darkest aspects of the novel and the subject matter.
- Upcoming HBO Series – This is a bit of a throw away answer. After seeing how well HBO did with George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, I have high hopes for a TV adaptation of American Gods.
- Multiple levels of meaning – similar to the making you think comment from earlier, this book contains multiple levels of meaning open to interpretation. American Gods is a labour of love. You can take sometime different out of it every time you leave.
- It’s hard to describe – so read it yourself. People either really love this book or absolutely despise it. There’s no middle ground. If you love mythology then I recommend checking it out or if you‘re looking for something different give it a read.
