WHY FICTION

Review: Anansi Boys

Anansi Boys

Neil GaimanAdult Sci-Fi/ Fantasy

400 Pages

HarperTorch

Available Now

THE STORY (from Goodreads):


Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother.

Now brother Spider's on his doorstep -- about to make Fat Charlie's life more interesting... and a lot more dangerous.

                                              ***

Neil Gaiman has lost me more friends than monopoly. Normally, after I read one of his works I get so overwhelmed by some piece of philosophy, or story,or nugget of knowledge that I go and recite it over and over to everyone I know (hence the friends becoming scare every time I read something Gaiman.)

But this book didn't really do that for me. I loved it--don't get me wrong--but it didn't set my tongue on fire with anything in particular. If this were written by any other author, I would have given it an immediate five stars. It has everything I look for in a novel: adventure, mythology, great characters, deep undertones; but since Neil Gaiman is on of my all-time favorites, I have imposed on him the highest standards possible. 

I was under the impression that this book was the companion to "American Gods" which has been my favorite Gaiman book for a long time. What I found, however, is that the two really don't have much to do with one another; except that they both focus on, well, gods.  

But on the positive side, Anansi boys really is a treasure of a story. It focuses on the sons of the African spider-God Anansi, and follows their misadventures. They get tangled up with all sorts of baddies (godly and otherwise) and us readers get to see both sons' very enthralling growth process.

"Fat Charlie," the protagonist is very likable, and the side characters are three dimensional (which Gaiman is always deft at doing). What I loved so much about this novel is how everything ties together so nicely. Sort of like every random piece was in a fact a cog in a bigger machine that Gaiman was building behind our backs. I highly recoomend checking this book out, even if you haven't read "American Gods."

OVERALL:  4/5 

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I LOVED IT