So today I began reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. So far it's interesting and somewhat good. Today I read the first three chapters. Right now we are in that early boring stage where characters are introduced and you don't yet what to think of them and they don't yet bring consequences to the character's life. Some stories just stay stuck there and you are sitting there bored, waiting for something interesting to happen.
Okay so what's happened so far is that Shadow is about the get out of prison. It's not yet clear how he got in there. He's about to return to the normal life with his wife and work on his friend's Muscle Farm. Then he learns that his wife is dead after a car crash. A strange man called Wednesday offers him a job and tells Shadow that his friend is also dead and that he and his wife died together. It's not clear what this job exactly is but Shadow accepts it and then some weirdness happens. At the funeral he learns that his wife was sleeping with the friend. Then more weirdness. He talks to his dead wife who tells him all about her affair and how she died. Shadow then tells Wednesday that he can leave immediately even though he previously planned to take care of his wife's stuff. In the middle of this you have two stories (after Chapter 1 and Chapter 3) that so far don't seem to have anything to do with anything.
So so far three things bother me. 1 - Shadow has no emotions about the death of his wife and friend, or her cheating. He's not sad, he's not angry, he's not anything. His life is turned upside down and he barely even blinks. And were they literally the only two people he knew that after they're dead he can leave everything behind. Seems like bad writing. 2 - Constant swearing and vivid descriptions about people going to the bathroom. In like movies or TV swearing never bothers me but in books that just never looks good. Ever! And the less said about the second the better. 3 - Random weirdness. Like I said this is just the beginning so all of it can in the end have some point. But until it starts to have a purpose in the story it's just gonna bore me.
I feel the story is building up to something and it seems like it might be interesting.
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