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I have a high regard for the YA work of Neil Gaiman and I had been told that American Gods is a masterpiece.
I haven't quite finished the book but I am disappointed. There is indeed the dark irony one finds in other works of his that I have read but I have reservations about the explicitly sexual content in this book which doesn't always illuminate thematic or character development. The very first passage is possibly an exception to this negative criticism as it could be read as a parodic parable about the self-destructive nature of certain types of masculine stereotypical gender behaviour. But I think that other sections add little.
I find too that the book is overlong. Many sections seem simply to grind away for pages. Yes, there are some quite interesting passages too. Sometimes the prose really does catch fire--particularly in dream sequences.
Possibly, this is a book that may gain on re-reading but at the moment, I'm not especially looking forward to doing so.
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