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. ( )

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 ( )

This is a super weird book and I think I hate it. Which means I'm 0 for 2 with Neil Gaiman novels. I think I'll try one more before officially declaring Neil Gaiman "not for me."

Sidenote: There was a time in my life when I considered reading abridged versions of anything as cheating. But the more unabridged texts I've read, the more convinced I am that including everything the author wants in there makes a book worse, not better. I think I would have liked this book more if I had gotten my hands on the original version, not the bloated "author preferred" version. ( )

I loved the way everything came together at the end. For a while I was confused at how the different threads worked together in this story. It honestly felt like everything just sort of happened to Shadow and that he didn't really do much but experience. He didn't seem to have an effect on the story. But after the halfway point, after Wednesday's death, everything started coming together. It was satisfying. If Gaiman decides to return to Shadow's story, I would read on. ( )