Before I read it, it felt like I’d been waiting for Norse Mythology my entire life. In the sense that I wanted it so badly the minute that I heard that it was coming. So, oops. It’s fine, but it’s not, like, life-alteringly amazingly incredible. I could have waited another minute before reading it. Taken a breath. Read something else. Taken this to the beach. Which isn’t to say it’s not a delight, it’s just that it doesn’t take a thing and change everything you’ve […]
He’d spent time rehearsing this serene pose
This was a kind of a placeholder for me. I’m not allowing myself to reread American Gods again, because I reread it less than a year ago, and I love it too much, and the TV series is coming, and it’s my favorite kind of book, so I had to find a proxy, and this looked super interesting. And it was good, but not amazing (nothing is American Gods, goddamnit!). I think the hardest for me was that Ike is no hero, antihero, complicated scamp, […]
Its essence is a mathematical construct, a self-referencing tautology, consecrated in the plane of regret.
A salute to the Cannonball Read and the Readers, for bringing this book into my brain. Holy crap, you guys. So good. Honestly, I had been expecting (and bracing myself for) something super duper effed up, based on the reviews that I had skimmed (to avoid spoilers). And yeah, it’s dark and horrifying and confusing and complex, but still really fricking readable. Here’s what I texted about 20 of my closest friends when I was halfway through and couldn’t stop reading last night: “It’s as […]
In which Fat Charlie answers the door and Spider encounters flamingos.
This was a superfun experiment in re-reading a book and its sequel in the correct order for the first time. As I mentioned in my “American Gods” re-read review, the first time around, I read “Anansi Boys” first, and it was nevertheless a totally delicious ride untainted by any sort of tyrannical adherence to an orderly timeline. I think Gaiman would approve. This time around, I read them in order, although I’m keeping with this personal tradition by learning too late that there’s a short […]